


A Seraph's Burden

by drowning_in_otps



Series: That Rushing Beast of the Night [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angel!Dick, Batman!Dick, Blind!Bruce, Demon!Jason, Language, M/M, Temporary Character Death, because Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drowning_in_otps/pseuds/drowning_in_otps
Summary: 'This couldn’t be happening. This didn’t make any sense.Except it did. With startling clarity, everything made sense. Down to the smallest atom, up to the ball of fire that burned daily in the sky, as if he had been there to witness the birth of both.And all he could do was scream.'Batman needs Robin. It was something that Dick had been convinced of from the moment he became Robin, but then things changed. Things changed at the stroke of midnight, like Cinderella running away from the ball, and now he had to deal with not only being Batman but being more.Then came Jason Todd - another change he hadn't expected that turned everything on its side just as things started to fall into a pattern.Everything after that... the only person Dick had to blame was himself.





	1. The Face of the Future (The Blood in My Veins)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xbullet_01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbullet_01/gifts).



> xbullet_01 gave me so many fantastic options that it was hard at first for me to decide to settle upon this one, though once I did... It quickly became a monster in size. Therefore, due to time constraints, I am making this a series after the conclusion of this three chaptered fic. The oneshots that follow will depict events glossed over in the past as well as later events of the future and so on. Thank you, xbullet_01, for giving me such a wonderful prompt!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Part One: The Face of the Future (The Blood in My Veins)

_“I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the Seraphim; each had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.” Isaiah 6:1-2_

_~*~_

_Nothing could describe the sheer agony of your brain coming undone and put back together with a searing, blinding light. It felt like pointed blades of lava - hotter and sharper than Michael’s sword of blue, a wayward thought whispered to him - were being jammed through his eyes, his body shaking as he fell onto his knees under the psychological onslaught, his hands clutching onto his head as he shook it violently, fingers digging through the dark hair and into his scalp as another dark haired man laid unconscious a foot away from him, terrifyingly still._

_But without even focusing on him, he could feel the life still thrumming - albeit weakly - in the man’s veins. Could_ feel _it. Like it was a part of him. Like everything was a part of him._

_This couldn’t be happening. This didn’t make any sense._

_Except it did. With startling clarity,_ everything _made sense. Down to the smallest atom, up to the ball of fire that burned daily in the sky, as if he had_ been there _to witness the birth of both._

_And all he could do was scream._

~*~

Jason was honestly still having trouble believing his luck as he got the third tire off of the black Maserati. Finally, he’d hit the freaking jackpot. He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere _near_ what the tires were actually worth, but if he got all four tires off, he’d have to get at least half a grande,  maybe even more, and he could eat on that for _months_. He couldn’t even imagine seeing all of that cash all at once let alone _having_ it.

He grinned and whistled an old tune under his breath that his mom used to hum to him. Rich dumbasses leaving their expensive cars around unprotected. They deserved to get messed over, and it wasn’t even like replacing the tires would be anywhere close to a drop in a bucket to them, so why not benefit from it?

The tires weren’t the easiest he’d jacked in the past. It almost felt like they were put on with some fucking monster-strength super glue. But still, easy enough money considering there were only a couple other gigs that got you nearly half a grande in one night, and he wanted no part in either of them.

“Come to daddy,” Jason murmured under his breath, feeling the fourth tire _finally_ start to give. He glanced around anxiously, a brief flittering of his eyes over the area before his head was bowed back over the tire and the tire iron in hand. “Almost there…” The promise of actual, real life, straight out of the oven food had his stomach clenching from hunger pains, that familiar empty ache feeling even stronger at the reminder.

In his anxiousness to hurry up and get done, he didn’t hear the footsteps that came up behind him or the way they stilled a couple feet away, listening.

“A-ha!” Jason cheered triumphantly as the tire came off, pumping a fist briefly into the air before he quickly began to get the tires into two piles - one for each side. Might be a bit awkward, but it’d get them from Point A to Point B.

His enthusiasm was quickly killed by a throat clearing behind him.

He lurched to his feet and whirled around, tire iron hefted up in his hand as a weapon. The man standing there was well dressed - his clothes _alone_ looked like they could feed a family for a month - and facing him, dark sunglasses covering his eyes, which Jason wouldn’t have thought anything of except there was a white cane tipped in red in his hand.

 _He’s blind_ , Jason’s mind supplied to him, shoulders relaxing some as he realized he wasn’t any threat.

“Scram, old man,” he ordered, bending down to pick up the tires, “ ‘fore the coppers come ‘round and see you hanging around a jacked up car.” It wasn’t safe for the guy to be wandering around Gotham this late at night anyway. Easy pickings. It had Jason feeling slightly guilty for taking off, but if he stuck around, there was no way he was gonna be able to keep these tires.

And food was food. If you let yourself worry about others out here, you’d just get yourself fucked over.

“Considering that’s my car you’re stealing from, I’d advise you to put the tires down,” the blind man remarked in an even tone, making Jason pause and do a double take at him.  
  
“How the hell do you know what I’ve got?” he retorted. “You’re blind.”

Unless he wasn’t, and he was the kind of guy that walked around with sunglasses and a cane to lure in unsuspecting victims.

Or maybe he was being too paranoid and the guy’s hearing was just really, really good, like that one devil guy he’d read about in a comic at the library.

Regardless, he threw the tire iron at him before grabbing two of the tires - all he could hold onto while running - and making a run around the car and towards the open alleyway. He cursed himself for it right away. He should’ve thrown a tire at him and held onto the tire iron as a weapon or something.

He then made the mistake of glancing back behind him, surprise causing him to freeze in place for a precious few seconds. The tire iron was in Blind Guy’s hand. He… He _caught_ it. The crazy fucker had caught it…

This wasn’t good.

He turned, letting go of the tires as he did, and booked it as fast as he could. His heart leapt into his throat at the sound of gravel crunching under heavy footfalls behind him. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. Panicked blue eyes caught onto a fire escape up ahead, and he grinned, picking up the pace and jumping up to catch onto one of the rungs on the ladder. He curled his left hand around it before reaching up with his right; however, before he could move too far, he felt something hook around his ankle and tug hard, making him lose his balance and fall back onto the ground.

A quiet oomph left him as his back hit the ground and all the air was knocked right out of him, a grimace crossing his features. Jason twisted his neck to look at the man moving to stand over him, the cane in the asshole’s hand the clear perpetrator. He narrowed his eyes before rolling over and pushing to his feet.

“You wanna go?” Jason challenged, shifting into a defensive position and raising his fists. “Then let’s go, old man. Let’s see what you can do.” Despite the rather prominent height difference, he went and threw a punch towards the man’s face, only for a larger hand to catch it. “How the hell…” he breathed quietly, fear rising as he tried to pull his hand free, but Blind Guy’s grip wouldn’t relent. The guy was blind. _Blind._

Jason brought his knee up quickly to slam into his stomach, only for a groan to tear from him as the attack was turned around on him and his back hit the ground again, the blind businessman above him looking almost bored, even with the faintly raised eyebrow directed down towards him.

“You shouldn’t throw things at bystanders, especially considering the damage a tire iron could do if it hit just right,” Blind Guy remarked, his cane pressing into the boy’s chest hard enough to keep him down but not enough to cause anything other than discomfort.

Jason glared up at him. “I thought you were blind, you fucking _pendejo_? You go ‘round like that just for kicks, huh?”

The corners of the man’s lips twitched a little. “I assure you my eyes are pretty useless these days. That doesn’t mean I can’t _see_.”

He scowled. “What the hell does that _paja_ mean? My eyes don’t work, but I can still see?” He tried to push back against the ground to swing his legs up at him, intending to kick him right in his damn perfect looking teeth, but the Mr. Miyagi wannabe didn’t let it get that far.

Just as Jason’s legs started to swing up, the cane was gone from his chest and the man moved to the side. Unfortunately for Jason, he was already in motion, which led to him landing face first in the dirt.

Blind Guy sighed. “Chum… just stop while you’re ahead before I call the police. You probably didn’t notice, but my car has a dashcam built into it, so even if you managed to get away, all I’d have to do is turn the footage over to the proper authorities.”

And Gotham cops had never been good to Crime Alley kids, that was for sure. Jason had had his own run ins with those assholes, even before his mom had bit the dust. His hands clenched at his sides, his teeth gritting together tightly.

“I already let go of your damn tires,” he snapped at last, “so what the hell do you want?”

Blind Guy was silent for a long moment, long enough for Jason to roll back over and slowly rise to his feet once more, and then a quiet, “When was the last time you ate?”

Jason frowned at the question, his gaze wary. “What’s it to you?” Though almost as if on cue, the mention of food had his stomach rumbling quietly, causing a faint grimace to cross his face before he was glaring at the man again.

Blind Guy nodded slightly as if he had assumed as much. Sightless eyes watched the young teen for a long moment before he said, “Come with me, and I’ll buy you a burger. There’s a place within walking distance.” The last part was added as assurance and assuaged some of the instant alarm that had shown clearly across Jason’s face.

“How do I know you won’t try anything funny?” he retorted.

Blind Guy raised an eyebrow at him. “I guess you’ll just have to take a chance and trust me.”

Trust the fucking blind guy that moved like a ninja. Okay. Sure.

However, what it really came down to was the fact that Jason didn’t have anything to lose - besides his life, which _really_ wasn’t that great - so might as well take the chance at some free food.

Jason eyed him before finally nodding. “Fine. But I want fries too.” A pause. “And a drink.”

Blind Guy gave a small chuckle. “A little demanding, aren’t you?”  
  
“Hey, from the looks of you, getting a fry and drink ain’t gonna bankrupt ya anytime soon,” Jason retorted with a snort. And if this guy really was a creep, well, he wanted to get the most he could out of a shitty situation then. “Just don’t go expecting anything else, got it? The burger, the fry, the drink, and then I’m out.”

“Of course,” Blind Guy replied smoothly, the faint hint of a smile curving the corners of his mouth upward. “The food and then you’re free to go. Promise.”

   


Dick stared through dark lenses at the teen in ratty looking clothes sitting at the kitchen table, who met his stare with a sharp, defensive glare. He blinked a little. “Um, hi?” The boy crossed his arms over his chest and continued to glare at him wordlessly. Dick looked over at Alfred as the elderly butler brought in a small plate of cookies and a glass of milk. “Bruce didn’t tell me we had a guest.”

He’d kind of been planning on sneaking a few cookies out of the jar before hitting the hay for the night, honestly exhausted from how busy patrol had been as well as just the general exhaustion that seemed to surround _Batman_ in general, but he was pretty sure there hadn’t been a kid here before he left. Almost positive.

In hindsight though, Dick hadn’t really been the most observant over the past year, so who knew? But he was almost positive that he’d have remembered an angsty kid who looked like he was ready to claw someone’s eyes out.

Almost positive.

Alfred’s lips twitched upwards wryly as he sat the plate and glass down in front of the boy, who seemed to practically _wrap_ himself around the food like a mother bear around her cubs. It took all of Dick’s restraint not to laugh at the adorable sight. “Of course Master Bruce would neglect to inform you before your return.” Or even after, considering Bruce had met Dick in the Cave when he initially returned from patrol. Dick really wasn’t all that surprised because it _was_ Bruce they were talking about. “Care to join me in the kitchen?”

Dick eyed the kid curiously for another moment before nodding and following after Alfred. He waited until they were both in the kitchen before asking, “So, what’s going on?” He popped a grape from a nearby bowl into his mouth.

“Young Master Jason will be staying with us for the time being,” Alfred informed him, “though I’m uncertain whether Master Bruce intends this to be a permanent change or not.”

Like Bruce had been uncertain if _Dick_ was going to be a permanent change. Dick’s eyes flickered back towards the entrance to the kitchen, a faint frown crossing his lips. “He say why?” It wasn’t in Dick to argue to leave a kid out on the streets if he had nowhere to go, but there’d been plenty of kids before, and they’d always left them to Gordon.

If Bruce was planning on this being a thing, he didn’t understand why Bruce couldn’t have talked to them _first_ before making that kind of decision.

Alfred sighed. “Master Bruce’s reasons are, as always, an utter mystery to me, though I’m positive that he has the best of intentions.” The corners of his eyes tightened. “And I’m not inclined to allow the boy to leave just yet either given his malnourished state.”

Dick grimaced. The kid _had_ seemed kind of scrawny from a brief glance. “Where did Bruce find him anyway?”

“It would seem that Master Jason was the one who found _him_ , in a manner of speaking.” Alfred’s voice turned dry. “He was caught stealing the tires off of Master Bruce’s car whilst Master Bruce was attending Gotham Central’s annual charity auction. From what he has told me, he was leaving the function early because of a message he received from you,” _about the O’Donahue case_ , Dick added absently, remembering the message in question, “and arrived right as the young master was working on the fourth tire.”

“And that inspired Bruce to bring him here?” Dick raised an eyebrow, his lips curving into a faint, almost sardonic grin. “He really can’t help it when it comes to troublemakers, huh?” It left a bad taste in his mouth though. It’d been just a little over a year since… everything. The timing felt off, almost like a jab at him for fucking up like he had. For taking everything from Bruce after all the man had done for him.

A hand settling on his shoulder startled him out of his thoughts. Alfred squeezed his shoulder once Dick met his eyes through the sunglasses. “None of that now, Master Richard. We are better than blaming ourselves for things we cannot help. It’s a lesson I failed to instill within Master Bruce, but I refuse to allow you to shoulder that same burden.”

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” Dick replied easily, resting a hand overtop of Alfred’s and squeezing lightly before letting go and stepping back. “It’s not important. I’m gonna go talk with our guest. This place isn’t the easiest thing to get used to, so he’s probably freaking out on the inside.”

Alfred tried to stifle a small chuckle. “I would advise you not to say anything of the sort around Master Jason if you wish to endear yourself to him.” The old man’s eyes were still concerned as they rested on Dick, however, well aware of the man’s tendency to shoulder everything quietly. Far more alike to Bruce than either party was ever keen on admitting. “I would send for Master Bruce now, but I don’t wish for the boy to feel bombarded on all sides.”

 _A good idea,_ Dick couldn’t help but think, remembering the look in the kid’s eyes as he’d come in. It was the look of a dog who’d been kicked around one too many times. No kid should look like that.

It also told him that if Alfred was right and this kid really was sticking around, they were in for a time of it.

Which brought with it another issue that was a little more pressing.

“What do I tell him about, you know.” Dick motioned towards the sunglasses covering his eyes, his lips curving into a grim line. It was a pretty big thing to miss. Eventually, whether it was tomorrow, a week from now, or a month, Jason was going to realize that Dick never went out of his room without them on.

Never.

“Pretty sure he won’t buy the excuse we give to the public, that the accident that blinded Bruce did the same to me.”

Alfred sighed quietly. “While I have always been an advocate for the truth, I recognize that this is a matter where the truth is likely to be ignored or treated with a - rather natural - suspicion.”

“Naturally,” Dick said dryly, snorting and shaking his head some before leaning back against the counter. He clutched onto the sides of it, his head tilting back with a groan. “Why did things have to get so complicated, Alfred?”

The butler’s lips curved into a small smile that was tired around the edges. “That’s an unfortunate characteristic of life, Master Richard. Mortal, immortal. At the heart of it are complex creatures, and where such complexity exists, so will complications. Looking at it from a different perspective, one could even argue that it is this sole fact that creates the grandest of wonders this world has to offer.”

   
 

Jason’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as the pretty boy from before came back out of the kitchen with the butler guy, Alfred. He shifted in his seat when he looked at him again - or he thought he was looking at him, anyway. It was hard to tell with those freak glasses on his face. What kind of douchebag wore sunglasses inside? Besides Bruce, but that particular douchebag had an excuse, he supposed.

Pretty Boy smiled at him as he took the seat across from him. “Jason, right? I’m Dick. It’s nice to meet you.”

“So nice you had to talk about me behind my back in there? Yeah, I’m not buying it,” Jason scoffed, shoving his hands into the ripped, threadbare pockets of the jacket, the tattered red hood resting over his head. He watched with a small amount of satisfaction as the man’s smile faltered a little on the edges. Good.

Dick sighed and offered him a smaller smile than before, clearly trying to figure out the right way to approach him. Kinda made Jason want to laugh. “We figured you wouldn’t want us talking about you in front of you. Seemed kind of rude, acting like you’re not sitting right there, you know?”

“Rude to talk behind people’s backs too, _pendejo_ ,” Jason shot back. He arched an eyebrow at him in challenge. “And what kinda name is Dick anyway?”

“Mine,” he replied with a brief, amused chuckle. Jason already didn’t like the guy. He was too _happy_ which was way too fucking suspicious in his opinion.

“It’s a stupid name.”

“Really? I think it suits me pretty well.” Dick grinned.

“Because you’re a dick? Seems ‘bout right.”

Dick shrugged good naturedly. “Can’t really deny that.” He reached across the table to snag a cookie off the plate but before his hand could come anywhere near it, it was off the table and on Jason’s lap.  
  
“Alfred said they’re mine,” he said bluntly, grabbing one and pointedly biting off a large chunk in front of him. He purposefully chewed it with his mouth open to drive his point home - something Dick couldn’t help but laugh at because it was such a childish move.

Which Jason didn’t take too kindly to, glaring at him and possessively eating the cookie. It was _sweet_. Really, really sweet. Too sweet, but he didn’t care because they were _his_. Alfred said they were, and if they were his, then he was damn well going to eat them.

Who knew when he’d get to eat next since he was blowing this popsicle stand at the first possible chance. Because it was too perfect, too fucking orphan Annie being taken in by Daddy Warbucks perfect, for it not to set off the BS alarms in his head.

And the only way he’d survived so far was listening to those BS alarms with full attention.

“What about sharing is caring?” Dick asked.

“That only works if I care,” Jason retorted. He just wanted to get out of here and go home, even if home was no specific place beyond Crime Alley. At least he knew the rules there.

Here, though… things were different. No one had said anything to him, but he just _knew_ the rules were different, and he’d rather be somewhere he knew what was expected of him than in this farce.

Otherwise, all that was left were speculations, and he could speculate pretty damn well what a rich guy would want with a kid off the street…

“I’m sure you care about something,” Dick replied, trying not to be too obvious with his probing. “Everyone cares about something.”

 Jason bit into another cookie with a raised eyebrow, trying to figure out if this guy was seriously for real or not. He swallowed the piece of cookie before clearing his throat, hoping to get some answers out of him since the other two hadn’t really told him a whole lot besides they ‘wanted to help him.’ 

Just as he opened his mouth, however, he was cut off by the sound of footsteps and the tap of a cane against hardwood floor. He closed his mouth and looked towards the entryway into the hall, the tapping growing closer until the man from earlier that evening - Bruce fucking _Wayne_ \- appeared.

“I’m sorry I had to take off like that as soon as we returned, chum, but I had some business I needed to attend to right away. Alfred and Dick have gotten you settled in, I hope?”

Jason really wanted to know how the hell the guy was able to just _know_ who was in the damn room. It was creepy. If it wasn’t for the fact that the sunglasses were gone, and he could actually _see_ the eerily pale blue of Bruce’s eyes, he’d still be thinking the asshole was faking it somehow. “Yeah… Alfred got me taken care of.”

Bruce leaned on his cane and nodded. “Good. I’m glad.” He moved to a seat, and Jason watched alertly as the cane tapped away at the ground before it finally hit against a chair leg. He’d moved so self assuredly earlier, self confidently, that it was weird, watching the slow movement.  Jason frowned a little but didn’t say anything. “Have you thought about what I asked you earlier, about staying here, at least for now?”

He looked back down at the plate of cookies and sat it back up on the table, a frown on his lips. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I’ve thought about it.” He didn’t say anything else on the subject, though, and Dick glanced at Bruce over Jason’s head, even if the man couldn’t return it.

“And?” Bruce inquired, probing carefully. “What do you think about the offer?”

Jason tapped the side of a cookie on the plate, his jaw clenching faintly. “You really wanna know what I think? I think it sounds too good to be true. You and the _chico bonito_ over there, you’re both rich, and rich guys ain’t that interested in kids like me unless they’re wanting _paid back_.”

“Paid back?” Dick asked slowly, the hidden eyes beginning to eerily glow as his lips pressed together, centuries of righteous fury building up within him that he had to force down. He could make an educated guess as to what that was a euphemism for.

“Yeah,” Jason repeated dryly. “ _Paid back_. _Sexo_. Sex.”

“You’re, like, ten.”

“Twelve,” Jason retorted, “and kids get propositioned all the time out there. In case you haven’t realized, Gotham’s kinda a shit fest, and it’s not like the cops or Batman do anything for Crime Alley. We’re just swept under the rug.” His eyes hardened. They weren’t even worth it to the precious heroes that saved the rest of Gotham on a daily basis.

Bruce let out a quiet sigh, though his sightless eyes never left Jason’s face, causing the boy to shift uncomfortably. He knew Bruce couldn’t see - that much was freaking obvious, even if there still felt like something was up - but in that moment, it felt like the man was staring right _through_ him.. “That’s never been the intent of either, I’m sure. Gotham has never been small, though that’s no excuse since you’ve clearly felt the absence of the system.”

“Damn straight it’s no excuse.” Jason snorted. “If Batman wasn’t such a solitary fuck and Wonder Woman was allowed to work in Gotham, I bet she’d have the crime rate all the way down to zero within a week. Maybe less.”

Bruce blinked, a single eyebrow raising slowly as he lifted his head to face where Jason was sitting. “I don’t know about that,” he said slowly. “I think you’re underestimating one and overestimating the other while overall underestimating Gotham herself.”

“Hold on there, Bruce,” Dick said, a considering look on his features, though it was quickly overtaken by a grin that he just couldn’t keep back. He needed to change the current mood hanging in the air before all that righteous fury caused some serious damage. “Kid might be onto something. Superman could probably clean the whole city up in a day or two.” Bruce sent a look in his direction that said he was unamused, and Jason felt like he was missing out on some kind of silent joke here.

“Is that so?” Bruce remarked dryly. “I’m glad to see that you and Jason have found something you share in common.”

Jason’s eyes flickered between them for a moment before standing. “Can I go to my room or whatever?” This felt too much like a damn family dinner, even if he was the only person eating, and this was just too weird for him. He didn’t want any part of that. Even if they were telling the truth and weren’t planning on doing anything freaky, this wasn’t the kind of place he belonged.

Willis had made damn sure he understood that they were gutter trash, and that’s all they ever could be. Todds were street people.

Bruce seemed to hesitate for a moment before he nodded and stood. “I’ll walk with you.”

“You don’t hafta. I remember where it is,” Jason said warily as he pushed his seat in, teal eyes narrowed on the blind man.

“I insist.”

Jason watched as Bruce started to take a step away from the table before pausing to feel behind him for his cane. Kinda like he wasn’t used to having to have one on hand. Granted, he was pretty sure he’d heard that blind people didn’t usually carry canes around their homes if they were used to where everything was and all that.

But there was something about the way that Bruce made himself still grab it that had him curious, even if he wouldn’t admit to it. Especially when paired with the way the fucker had _moved_ earlier.

Because that sure as hell hadn’t been normal.

“Feel like I need a whistle or something,” he muttered as he followed Bruce into the hallway, causing the older man to sigh but leave it alone anyway. Good because being able to joke was the only fucking way Jason was able to keep from booking it out the door.

“Jason… I told you before, I want to help you, and this house is far too big for just myself and Alfred now that Dick - for the most part - lives elsewhere.” Bruce turned sightless eyes towards where he knew a small family portrait hung on the wall of his parents and himself, even if he could no longer see it. “My parents created a home here when they married. I want to continue that tradition, but I don’t plan on getting married in the foreseeable future, and to be honest, I’m not much of a fan of the thought of it either.”  Jason wasn’t sure why Bruce was telling him this, but he listened anyway, watching him.

“I’m even less of a fan of the way children slip through the system’s cracks so easily. That’s why taking Dick in was such an easy choice, and that’s why I’m offering you a chance to stay here as well. You can’t stay on the streets, and children your age… Unfortunately, they don’t tend to be adopted. A grave injustice, but the truth.”

It wasn’t exactly news to Jason. It was just an accepted part of life. Kids on the streets didn’t get shiny new homes or even lackluster ones that were milky or cloudy, imperfect but still a home, a safe place. They got the kind that had cockroaches between the mattresses in rooms with four other mattresses all crammed together while abusive foster parents collected a pretty check every month.

And that was if you were _lucky_.

Jason clenched his jaw and looked away, having a hard time looking him in the eye, even if he couldn’t exactly look back. It still felt too damn much like the asshole could see right through him.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said at last, voice quieter. “Things like this… They don’t happen to kids like me. There’s gotta be some kinda catch.” And Bruce dipping into the kiddie pool was the only thing he could think of that made sense.

“There isn’t,” Bruce replied firmly. “That’s not to say there wouldn’t be expectations. As a Wayne, you would have to attend public functions in dress clothes Alfred will personally choose for you. In addition, you’ll go to school on time five days a week. If Alfred asks you to help around the house, you’ll assist as needed too. Is that understood?”

Jason started to nod before catching himself, a small scowl crossing his lips as he turned sideways to look at him fully. “I didn’t agreed to anything yet, okay? Don’t be getting ahead of yourself.” He shoved his hands into threadbare pockets again, his eyes slipping around absently once more, though they lingered on the wall, where the family portrait was resting. He looked at it for a long moment, a small frown crossing his lips, before he finally looked away and scuffed his shoe against the polished hardwood floor.

“Just a day or two, okay?” he finally said, though his tone was almost short, like he wasn’t happy with his decision, even though it _was_ his decision. “Long enough to show you I can’t take care of myself. And then I’m out. Got it?”

Bruce’s lips curved upward a faint fraction. “Got it.”

   


Dick crept into the library quietly a couple weeks later, the sole occupant of the room curled up on the couch and facing towards the fireplace with a book. Jason’s attention never wavered, his fingers tracing each line with the pad of his index finger, teal eyes following every word closely with such raptness the quiet creak behind him didn’t even register. The fingers on his other hand gripped tightly onto the edge of the book, hard enough for the paper to crinkle some as it wrinkled.

A grin crossed Dick’s lips before he raced forward and flipped over the back of the couch right beside Jason. His grin only grew at how the kid jumped sharply, even if faint guilt tempered the amusement in his gaze. He hadn’t meant to scare the kid as much as he had. “What book are you reading?”

Jason scowled and pulled his legs closer to him. “Fucking _pendejo_.” His heart was jackrabbiting in his chest, something Dick could faintly feel through the air, one of those sometimes convenient sometimes distracting abilities that had woken up within him when Remiel had.

“I scare you?” he asked with a grin, even though he already knew the veracity of that from the way Jason’s shoulders squared back and that stubborn chin jutted out.

“ _No_ ,” the boy retorted defensively. “In your dreams, maybe. I just thought your fat ass was gonna crush me is all.” He sat the book down to the side, and Dick was quick to sweep it up.

“The Complete Poetry of Anne Sexton?” he read out loud. He flipped it around to look at the back cover. “She any good?”

Jason snatched the book back from him. “Don’t,” he warned lowly.

“Don’t what?” Dick asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Just… don’t,” Jason muttered. “Don’t pretend to be interested when I know you’re not.”

“How do you know I’m not?” Dick asked. The seriousness in his tone had darker blue eyes flickering up towards him quizzically, a small crease forming between his eyebrows as they furrowed. “You’re my little brother,” the man continued in response to the look. “Even if the papers aren’t signed yet, they will be pretty soon. I care about what you like.”  
  
“You don’t even _know_ me.”

“But I’m trying to.” Dick knew better than anyone how lonely this place could get. Bruce was great, but he was still Bruce, and there wasn’t much getting around that. And while Alfred was the best, Alfred was also running an entire household on top of making sure Bruce didn’t try to sneak out onto the streets as Batman or slip into anything even remotely resembling self pity.

Jason looked at him for a long moment. “Why?”

“Because you’re my brother,” Dick repeated patiently. He gave Jason a small smile. “And I remember what it’s like to come into this from a completely different world.” Something he knew doubly now, he guessed, even if the second time might not exactly classify.

Jason rested his chin on his knees, and while he pointedly didn’t comment on the brothers piece, the frown he was wearing made it clear he didn’t know how to take what he was saying. “Bruce said something about taking kids in who’d fall through the cracks,” he said slowly, and Dick’s smile grew a little.

“Yeah, that’d be me to a T,” he agreed. “I grew up in a literal circus, and after my… after my parents passed away, I got thrown into an orphanage that was more than a little sucky. Before I was there too long, though, Bruce came by and took me in.” He had to be careful with how much he said. Bruce had made it clear that he didn’t want Jason to know anything about their nighttime occupations, at least until the kid was a little more settled, and Dick couldn’t have agreed more.

Especially because letting Jason in on that secret meant letting him in on others.

“A circus,” Jason repeated. “Like a _for real_ circus?”

“Nope. Completely fake. The LSD must’ve been flowing pretty heavily because we managed to convince entire towns that they saw actual elephants,” Dick replied. He received a small kick in the leg for the joke, but it was worth it to catch the eye roll from the younger teen. Good. The kid was too tense.

“ _Cabrón_ ,” Jason retorted. He rubbed a thumb anxiously along the edge of the book, able to think better when he had something to do with his hands. “How old were you?”

“Nine.” A simpler time that Dick missed some days and was glad to be past on others.

Jason was silent for a moment before asking quietly, “Does it ever, you know, hurt less?”

Dick reached out to rest a hand on the small shoulder. When Jason didn’t immediately pull away, he gave it a comforting squeeze. “It does,” he said quietly, “a little. But that’s just because of time, and… I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.” The way the pain became more manageable as more distance was placed between then and now. “But it stops feeling like a punch in the gut after a little while. That I can promise.”

He watched as Jason nodded slowly before setting the book down on the coffee table and standing up. “I’m gonna go get ready for dinner,” the teen said awkwardly after a moment. “So I’ll see you in a few?” Jason wouldn’t look at him.

Dick’s eyes softened. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Still not looking at him, Jason left the room, and Dick smiled. His eyes moved to the book resting on the table. A closet bookworm, huh? At least that would make Christmas and birthdays pretty easy.

He bent to pick up the book, though he stiffened just as his fingers brushed the cover. A wave of heat washed over him, his only warning before he was pulled out of the physical world and into the one within his head full of dark, harrowing possibilities.


	2. Last Things Last (By the Grace of the Fire and the Flames)

 

Part 2: Last Things Last (By the Grace of the Fire and the Flames)

 

_“For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:3_

~*~

_He had failed. He had promised himself that things would be different, that_ he _would be different, now that he had the ability to fight when there hadn’t been an option in the past. There was so much he could do that he couldn’t before. Nothing bad was going to happen. Not again._

_His offer. His choice. His fault._

_Tears slid down tan cheeks, glistening in the faint moonlight as they dropped onto the grave in front of him, soaking into the recently overturned soil. For once, nothing shielded his eyes. For once, glowing blue eyes were muted in color as a storm raged overhead._

_~*~_

Dick could hear Alfred outside his bedroom door, telling Jason that he needed to let him rest a little longer because he was feeling “under the weather,” and Jason’s frustrated response about Dick having seemed fine earlier, which had his lips twitching into a faint smile.

The kid had guts, standing up to Alfred, he’d give him that. Either that or he was suicidal. His smile faded away, and his eyes slipped shut once more, his chest feeling tight as what he’d seen a month ago flashed back before his eyes.

He wished he knew how to understand these damn visions, but they’d never come with any sort of user manual. What made it even harder to sort through was the fact that he could remember every inch of it right down to the feeling of freshly overturned soil sliding through his fingers as rain pounded against his back, thunder snapping in the distance in a dark, lightning-less sky.

The moon casting a small sliver of light in front of him, illuminating the stone colored headstone just enough for the name on it to become legible.

And with it came a knowledge that chilled him to the very bone; Jason Todd was going to die unless Dick did something about it. But Dick had no clue what the hell he was even supposed to do _to_ stop that threatening future lying in the young teen’s horizon. It left a twisted feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Added to this was the constant thrum of millenia bouncing around within his skull without any break; the way that life played itself back through soundless images, pale imitations of a time when things were… better.

An image of war sprung into his mind’s eye. Bloodied corpses covering seemingly endless battlefields. Corrupt kings hunted down and slain where they stood for their crimes against the Lord and humanity. Small bodies left broken…

Okay, maybe _better_ wasn’t the best way to describe it.

Dick groaned as he rubbed his hand over his eyes, his dark sunglasses resting beside him on the nightstand. A year. Hell, it didn’t feel like a year. It felt more like a _lifetime_. Which made sense, he mused, because thousands of lifetimes had been slammed into him all at once, and even now, he couldn’t make sense out of all of them.

Because of it, it was hard to separate the feelings of Dick Grayson from the feelings of Remiel, even if they were supposed to be one and the same. And they _were_ , yet their reactions were different. Too different…

At least the one thing both parts of his psyche were able to agree on was the need to protect, and that led into the problem with Jason.

So far, all of his visions had come true without fail. Without. Fail. Dick didn’t know how to bring this up to Bruce. Hell, he didn’t even know if he wanted to bring it up to Bruce. The man could accept that his ward was actually the reincarnation of an angel, but visions? Pft. Now _that_ was crazy talk. It didn’t matter that Bruce had fallen asleep with braille copies of every single religious text he could find for months after Remiel’s awakening, his fingers still resting over the raised bumps when Alfred would find him in the morning; the fact that Remiel only showed up in the Bible and the Tanakh as the angel of visions was enough for him to disregard that particular tidbit. If a fact couldn’t be confirmed five times over, particularly something so intangible, he wanted no part of it.

Visions, hope, mercy…

It was terrifying, the weight all of that carried.

Dick sighed as he sat up and reached over for his sunglasses. He had never hated something more in his life than he did the damn glasses, and the way they dimmed the world around him, even if it was better than the alternative.

He slid them on and watched as the light filling the room was chased out by the shielding of the lenses. Darkness chasing away light, light chasing away the dark. Light causing darkness, dark causing light… His head hurt from the innumerable possibilities coasting through his mind, the way small images and moments seemed more profound.

It was a total shift in thinking, and that was probably the hardest part. Keeping himself, _Dick Grayson_ , amidst that.

And what was the most Dick Grayson thing to do? Refuse to believe that there was no way around the vision, that fate was something that was set and done without any room to move around it. After all, the fate of Adam and Eve - predestined as it was - was to live out their lives in eternal bliss within Eden. But where Man existed, so did choice, and their actions had sent them as far away from the paradisiacal garden as they could come.

Because there were always, _always_ , unaccounted for variables, and Dick Grayson was one of them. And it had nothing do with his divinity and everything to do with the parts that made him _him_ ; his refusal to just accept things as being etched in stone, his refusal to allow some higher power to dictate who and what he should be. The parts that made him human. The parts that declared that Jason Todd wasn’t going to die. Not if he had anything to say about it.

  
  
Though if Jason had anything to say about it, the kid was going to land himself into an early grave.  
  
Dick liked to think that he was a pretty chill, patient guy. After all, as ironic as the saying was now, patience was a virtue, and as a being that was supposed to _represent_ that virtue, it was supposed to come second nature.

Except it didn’t, which was why Jason’s newfound game of trying to knock his sunglasses off to ‘see what he was hiding’ was starting to get to him. It wasn’t that he could blame the kid. At that age, he’d probably have done the exact same thing. No, he _knew_ he would’ve done the same thing because even Dick could admit that he’d wonder what the hell was going on by this point, especially with all of the non-answers they kept giving out about it.

But that didn’t help his losing battle with patience any because _knowing_ did nothing to combat the fear of the kind of damage Jason’s game could do if he actually succeeded. Bruce had engineered them for him with Alfred’s help as his eyes, using alien technology to create a kind of thin, almost unnoticeable shield. Kept little tricks like Jason’s from knocking them off.

But if the kid kept trying… it was just a matter of time, and all Dick could think of was Bruce, laying on the ground and so, _so_ fucking still.

The thought of Jason of all people that still, the thought of Jason being unluckier than Bruce and _staying_ that still…

The thought of that _damn fucking tombstone_ becoming a reality…

Dick couldn’t handle it, which was why finally - like a rubber band stretched far past its limits - he snapped.

“I told you to _stop_!” And instantly regretted it as Jason flinched, Dick able to visibly _see_ the teen’s guards going up. All of the progress of the past three months disappearing just like that. It was a stupid mistake. The signs had always been there, that Willis Todd had been an abusive piece of scum, but nothing had actually confirmed it until now.

And now Jason was moving away, first one step, and then another, before turning around and running up the stairs. The slam of a door upstairs a moment later told him he’d retreated into his bedroom, and Dick’s shoulders slumped.

“Shit,” he whispered, rubbing a hand back through his hair. Jason had finally started to open up more around them, and he wasn’t naive enough not to realize what a humongous set back this was going to be.

Guilt twisted his stomach, but instead of going after him, he figured it might be better to give him some space and apologize to him later after Jason had had some time to calm down. He sighed and made his way to Bruce’s study. Inside, the businessman was going over what Dick assumed were business documents, fingers sliding across the Braille on the pages with a faint furrow to his brow.

Dick waited a moment, feeling the guilt pile on even more at the sight. He swallowed before knocking once on the doorframe just to let him know he was there before moving into the room. “Hey, Bruce.”

Pale blue eyes moved in the direction of the voice and from there followed his path through the sound of his footsteps. “Dick,” he greeted in turn. He straightened and leaned back against the chair, the furrow returning to his brow. “What seems to be the problem?” His sightless gaze was still as piercing as it had always been, which would never stop being disconcerting as hell.

The corner of Dick’s mouth twitched faintly, and his voice was quiet as he said bitterly, “Not even partners anymore, and you can still see right through me.”

“Because you’re my son,” Bruce informed him dryly. “Just because I can no longer see doesn’t mean I can’t _see_.” And without the ability to see, he had been faced with far too much time to reflect on past mistakes, which was something he was trying to make up for now with Jason.

“That… sounds strangely ominous,” Dick muttered. Now that he was closer, he could see that what Bruce had been reading was one of Jason’s English papers over yet another Anne Sexton poem. The kid was obsessed. Dick didn’t even recognize half the poets that Jason went on about. He caught a few words, something about a dragon and stars, before he bit his cheek to focus back on Bruce instead.

Bruce let out a small, indulgent sigh, more than used to Dick’s ability to inadvertently tumble away from whatever topic was at hand to focus on some minute detail. It was one he looked over with a mixture of exasperation and fondness. “Are you ready to tell me what the problem is or not?”

Dick looked down at his hands. “I snapped at Jason,” he said quietly, “and I’m not so sure he’ll talk to me now, so I was wondering if you’d go check on him?”

“You snapped at him,” Bruce repeated, already able to see what the problem ahead was going to be. Jason had proven to be the kind of kid who would either match tone for tone or take off for solitude with no rhyme or reason for which he’d choose.

And this time, he’d chosen the latter.

“Yeah. So much for angelic patience, huh?” Dick attempted to sound light, but it came out bitter instead. With all these memories of wars he had never even fought bouncing around inside his head, it was getting hard for him to believe all of that religious bullshit of angels being peaceful servants of the Lord.

They weren’t just servants; they were warriors. It was why Dick had felt such an affinity for Robin. Even in rebirth, he was a warrior, but warriors followed orders, and the Lord had remained silent ever since Dick realized that he was supposed to be listening for some higher power.

The silence was the worst part.

“You already know my opinion on the matter,” Bruce said evenly. He didn’t see the point in waiting on something that, in his opinion, might not even exist. Therefore, Dick was on the same level as a meta rather than some holy power.

“I do,” Dick confirmed quietly. And he was thankful for it. The constant reminder from Bruce that he might not have chosen to be the reincarnation of a seraph and archangel, but he could choose the rest of his fate. He wasn’t shoehorned into anything because of what he was.

Even if his other self, Remiel, constantly countered this in his head.

“Why did you snap at him?” Bruce asked to return to the topic at hand.

Dick hesitated before saying slowly, “I’d rather not say.” It was stupid, and he knew it too, because he also knew that Bruce would understand this particular fear more than anyone else could, but he couldn’t. To admit to it would be to admit to Bruce that he still blamed himself for blinding him when Remiel awakened, and to do that would be to remind Bruce of what he had lost. And Dick might be an angel, but that wasn’t synonymous with selfless, and he didn’t want to give Bruce any reason to shut himself away from him again.

Bruce’s brow furrowed, the sightless eyes boring holes into him, or at least that’s the way it felt. “Then how do you expect me to help?”

“I was wondering if you could talk to him for me,” Dick replied after a moment.

“You mean apologize for you?” Bruce inquired dryly. “Dick, that’s not going to endear you to him, especially since I don’t have any inkling of the full extent of the situation. It would be better for him to hear from you.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Dick muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t want you to apologize for me. Just… I don’t know. What’s the use of all of this shit in my head if I don’t know what to say?”

“That’s the human part of you,” Bruce advised. “Just speak with him and try to explain why you snapped.”

Except Dick couldn’t because it wasn’t something he _could_ explain. Even if he told him about what he was, telling him about the vision would only make it happen. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Jason would try to avoid that future, and he’d fall headlong into it as a result.

No, Dick couldn’t explain to Jason the exact truth, but maybe he could figure something else out…

Only, when he went to Jason’s bedroom a few hours later to talk, the window was wide open and the room barren of any sign of the young teen, save for the open collection of poetry laying out on the bedspread.

 

Raindrops splattered across the pavement in an unforgiving stream, and Jason glared up at the darkening sky as if it was somehow personally offending him. “Of fucking course,” he muttered under his breath, pulling on the strap on his backpack and tightening his grip on it. He was already starting to regret his choice to take off, but the decision had already been made, and he was pretty sure they’d noticed by this point, so like hell was he going to crawl back on his stomach to them.

His mom always said that you had to deal with the choices you made in life and roll with them. _A lo hecho, pecho_. In the face of deeds done, present a full chest. A saying he freaking hated, but it was the truth. You dealt with your choices, your actions, even if they ended up being pretty shitty choices. That was the way the dice rolled.

That didn’t stop him from cursing under his breath as he tried to find a stoop to hide under. He’d grabbed what clothes of his he could from there, but he hadn’t felt right taking everything, so the less drenched this outfit got, the better.

“ _Ave Maria_ ,” he muttered under his breath as he caught sight of one facing off towards the alley and raced towards it before someone else could steal it. It wouldn’t do much with the rain coming down like the world was about to flooded all fucking over again, but it’d be some shelter, at least. He’d had less in the past.

Jason sat down with his back pressed up real close against the door underneath the stoop, trying to get as out of the direct path of the falling rain as possible. He wiped the sleeve of his jacket across his forehead and then his cheeks, though with it already being a little wet, it didn’t do a whole lot for him. He looked down at the strap to his backpack, pain flickering within his eyes briefly.

Stupid. He was so fucking _stupid_. Dick got tired of his shit and snapped, and what did Jason do? He ran away like a fucking coward. All Dick did was snap. He didn’t hit him. Didn’t do anything but tell him to knock it the fuck off.

And yet here he was, away from the first decent start he’d had. Away from Alfred and his cookies when Jason had a bad day at that damn school Bruce was making him go to. Away from Bruce and the asshole’s constant repetition of ‘you can do better, I’m disappointed’ after every fight he got into. Dick’s talkative presence whenever the guy was around the Manor, which was actually pretty often, like he forgot sometimes he had his own place and just stuck around out of habit. Dick’s patient listening when he ranted about the snobby ass kids at school, and how he shouldn’t have to just deal with their bullshit without reacting, and Dick’s usual response that was so fucking similar to his mom’s.

_‘I’m not going to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do, Jay. You’re a big boy. You can make those decisions yourself. If you want to stand up for yourself, do it. No one can stop you. Just don’t expect there not to be consequences. That’s just how life works, kiddo.’_

He pressed his face against his knees and closed his eyes. He was so fucking stupid…

There was a crash nearby and then a stifled scream. Jason’s head jerked up at the sound. Wariness touched his eyes as he stood up slowly, fingers tightening around the strap of his backpack as he waited. At the sound of a soft groan of pain, he raced off towards it, even as everything in him screamed to run the other way.  
  
But his mom had said that you should always help other people if you could. And besides that, Todds didn’t run away. They fought tooth and nail and made their enemies quiver in their boots.

Okay, maybe his mom hadn’t said that last part, but he was pretty sure it was implied. He needed to do something.

 

It had to be said that Dick wasn’t panicking, despite Bruce chastising him for it through the comm. Bruce didn’t know what he was talking about because Dick would know if he was panicking, and that was one thing that he _wasn’t_ doing right now.

Because panic didn’t come anywhere close to describing what Dick was feeling. Dick was so far past the point of panic that it was left scrambling in the dust to try and catch up with him again.

It didn’t matter that Bruce had found Jason on the streets and that the kid clearly knew how to survive out here. It didn’t fucking matter because this was Gotham, and Dick could feel the taint of darkness within the city that sunk into the very ground. That wasn’t to say that the city was damned in any way, there were moments where light seemed to blossom throughout the city in small patches, but all Dick could focus on right now was the taint and the fact that Jason was somewhere in this city on his own.

Which is why he ignored Bruce’s direct orders not to fly in Gotham and pulled on that familiar warmth deep in his chest, digging in deep. As if on cue, a burst of pain spread through his back a moment before six wings of luminous light spread out from his back and reached out towards the sky.

He groaned at the feeling of them spread out once more after being trapped inside for so long. The beacons of light flickering as they flapped briefly before he pushed off from the roof to soar through Park Row. He remembered Jason mentioning the place a couple times, saying he’d lived there with his mom back before she passed away.

Now he just needed to find him before it was too late and that tombstone became a reality.

 

Jason grunted as his back hit the graveled alleyway hard, pain flashing within his eyes before they hardened. He glared up at the man looming over him before he glanced past him at the shaking woman by the wall. “Run,” he snapped at her. That way at least something good came out of whatever the hell was going to happen next. Likely, his death, but hey, he was trying to be a little more optimistic.

Though slamming his knee into the guy’s crotch and rolling away onto his feet probably wasn’t going to help matters if the asshole caught him. Oops.

Jason smirked at the guy. “What’s the matter?” He cooed as the man held onto his family jewels. “Thought you said you were gonna kick my ass, but I’m all the way over here, and you’re all the way over there. Not so sure you get the whole ‘ass kicking’ concept.”

The man narrowed his eyes on him. “That’s it, you fucking kid,” he snarled and reached into his jacket. Jason’s eyes widened as he pulled out a gun. Well shit. There went that.

“You really wanna try that? I mean, attempted rape _and_ murder? You’re really gonna make people’s day with how quick their jury duty is because it’ll take, like, a _second_ for you to get the book thrown at you.”

“Not if they don’t never find out,” the man retorted, cocking the gun.

“And _that_ was a double negative, but okay,” Jason muttered under his breath, though his eyes never left the muzzle of the gun. He didn’t want to die. Life might be pretty shitty, but it was still there, still something to exist within instead of just going poof into oblivion.

Life might be pretty shitty some days, but it was better than it being nothing at all.

There was a small flash from it that preceded the sharp sound that pierced through the otherwise quiet night air. In that brief flash, Jason saw a different kind of flash; his entire life spread out before his eyes, knowing there was no way to outrun this.Though instead of feeling like minutes, it felt like the couple short seconds it really was, the flash showing everything at once a moment before he was knocked back onto the hard ground for a second time.

Jason groaned as pain arched through his skull. “Anyone get the plate on that fucking semi?” It was weird. He’d have thought being shot would hurt a hell of a lot more than just a headache. His hand moved to hold onto his forehead while he pushed himself up some with the other, only for his eyes to catch onto the shell casing and bullet lying uselessly on the ground a few feet away.

Before he had time to fully grasp what the hell that could mean, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The blue orbs rose up slowly, following thin, long wings that looked like they were made of the fucking _sun_ itself, which contrasted pretty damn sharply with the dark suited vigilante standing there. He blinked a couple times.

Since when did Batman have fucking wings?

He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, but he couldn’t even think of what to say other than, “What the hell?”

“Stay back, kid,” Batman ordered quietly, but he didn’t _sound_ like Batman. Not like the old Batman, anyway. He’d heard rumors there was a new Batman, but he hadn’t really believed any of them until now.

Jason’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move from his spot while the masked hero turned back towards the thug. “Put the gun down, and this won’t have to go any further,” Batman cautioned. “You’re not getting out of some jail time, but what you _can_ decide is what kind of condition you’re in when your sentence gets passed down.”

“Fuck you,” the man spat. Another gunshot rang out, and Jason watched as the shining wings crossed in front of Batman to form what he could only guess what some kind of makeshift shield. Sparks flew off of it and then the shell and casing hit the ground once more.

At least now he knew what had happened with the first one, but what in the actual fuck…

Batman sighed. “You really couldn’t have made this easy, huh?” He darted forward before the thug could react and twisted up into the air to deliver a sharp kick to the face which sent him crashing to the ground.

When he didn’t move again, Jason hefted up a piece of the twisted up piece of PVC piping hanging out of the dumpster and shifted it upward like a baseball bat. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Batman turned around slowly, his eyes first resting on the PVC pipe and then Jason’s face. “Batman.” He took a step forward. “Let me take you to the police station so your parents can -”

“Batman can’t fly,” Jason snapped. “So I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’re not him.”

The man grimaced. “I _am_ Batman,” he said after a moment, “just not the first one. I alerted the police already, so we should get you to the station so that your guardian can be called, okay?”

“How do I know you’re even telling the truth?” Jason challenged.

“Would I have saved you if I wasn’t?” Fake Batman asked exasperated.

Jason tightened his grip on the pipe. “Yeah. False sense of security and all that _mierde, pendejo_. Besides, I don’t have a place.”

That seemed to make Fake Bats pull up short. “You… don’t have a place?” He repeated. The white eyeholes seemed to bore into him, leaving him feeling even more anxious. “You really think that?”

Jason frowned at him. “Well, yeah… What the hell is it to you?” He’d ruined his chance at the Manor, so it was just him and the streets now.

“Jason…” The murmured name was quiet, almost regretful, and it sent sparks of panic through him all over again. “Come here.”

His eyes widened incredulously from both the request and the use of his fucking _name_. Just who the hell was this asshole? “You want me, your next victim, to come over to you? I’m not drive thru food, thank you very much.”

“Drive thru - you think I’m going to _eat_ you?” The way Fake Batman’s voice rose sounded almost familiar. “Jaybird, I’m not planning on - on _eating_ you.” 

“I didn’t mean it literally,” Jason snapped before his brows furrowed, the sentence suddenly filtering through his mind. Jaybird. And the familiar voice… His eyes flickered to the wings and then the masked eyes, lingering there as if that was where all of the answers were waiting. “Don’t be such a fucking _Dick_.”

 

“I never said I wanted to come back,” Jason muttered, trying to pretend like his eyes weren’t all over every inch of the Cave he could see from where Dick had made him sit.

“You didn’t?” Dick asked as he updated the computer’s log. The cowl was gone now, though it was replaced with his usual sunglasses. “I thought Al already told you about the punishment for lying. And trust me, he’ll pick the nastiest piece of soap he can find. Covered in hairs and B.O. and all that fun stuff.”

Jason scowled and kicked his legs back and forth absently. “Nuh uh.”

“Uh huh,” Dick replied, a faint smirk crossing his lips. He silently noted that the kid didn’t deny the lying part. “Trust me, I’d know.”

Silence, and then a blunt, “You say I should trust you, but so far, you’ve told me nothing about what’s going on here. The way I see it, trust is a two way street.”

Dick closed his eyes briefly. “There are some secrets that I _can’t_ tell you.” The more Jason knew about who Dick was, the more dangerous it would be for him. “What I _can_ tell you, and what I _need_ you to be satisfied with and leave the rest alone, is that Bruce - ”

“- I was Batman,” came the voice from behind them. Jason jerked, not having heard the quiet taps of the man’s cane. The man walked forward to the computer chair with the same careful, deliberate motions and sat down. “And then I was in an accident. The city still needed a Batman, however, and…” Bruce’s lips pressed together to form a thin line, sightless eyes glaring into thin air. “...it became obvious I could no longer be what the city needed, so Dick took over for me.”

Dick could almost feel the judgment hanging in the air even though logically he _knew_ it wasn’t actually there.

But he could feel it clear as day anyway. The wonders of guilt.

Jason’s eyes flickered between the two. “That’s why you move like a ninja. But you’re blind, so you can’t - How could you still -”

“Because I’m Batman,” Bruce deadpanned. Dick felt his lips turn upward faintly, though the corners of his eyes remained tight. 

“Yeaaaaah… You know that’s not, like, a real answer, right?” Jason looked skeptical.

“You asked and I answered. The training I underwent years ago to become the legend Batman has grown into was rather severe, to say the least. While my cowl was equipped with night vision, I learned to fight in the dark without the assistance of vision. I never thought it would become useful on a more permanent basis, but it has been invaluable since my accident.”

It was still too risky for Bruce to be on the field. There was too much danger to it, no matter what he preferred to think, which was why Dick and Alfred had to watch him when he got into his quiet, sulkier moods. Bruce still thought he could hold the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the fact that he no longer could had never seemed to fully seep in. Granted, it had only been a year and a half since everything, and Dick wondered sometimes if it was something that anyone could ever truly accept.

Which is why part of him kind of expected that one of these days, Bruce would be back on the streets under a different guise. He was too good, too passionate, about the city to stay down.

And that terrified Dick. The thought of Bruce trying to fly once more only to fall crashing to the ground like his parents.

That also led into the problem of Jason though and something Dick had been debating about over the past couple hours. Jason had absolutely no fucking training, but he was so damn _good_ that he’d jumped right into action to protect the almost victim. Because, as Jason had snapped when Dick had been telling him he should’ve stayed out of it because it wasn’t like there was anything he could have done ‘it was the right thing to do.’

Even knowing he didn’t stand a chance, Jason had still jumped in because he wanted to help people, wanted to do good things…

The tombstone flashed before Dick’s eyes again, and he had to close his eyes tightly to get rid of it. If Jason kept doing things like this without the proper training, that was going to come true. That had to be what that damn vision meant.

“Dick?”

His eyes flickered up startled. Jason was looking at him curiously, and Bruce was facing his general direction, a single eyebrow raised as the unfocused eyes stared past him. He realized they must have been trying to get his attention. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.” He shook his head before looking to Bruce. “Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone,” he added, when neither moved.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jason retorted, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “No more lies or secrets, besides the weird one with your eyes and pigeon wings.”

‘Pigeon wings?’ Dick mouthed. He was slightly offended. His wings were beautiful. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his neck. “Fine. You’re right. There _shouldn’t_ be secrets around here.” That’s what Bruce would’ve done, and Dick was tired of secrets anyway.

“Dick,” Bruce cautioned warily, his grip tightening on his cane, but Dick wasn’t having it. Jason was right. This wasn’t what Dick had been about to talk to Bruce about, but it was a good place to start.

Because he’d encountered creatures he knew innately as demons, had memories of what these demons could do when they took over a human, and if Jason was going to be anywhere near the field, he needed to be aware of them too.

 “What do you know about angels?”

“Dick,” Bruce repeated, sharper this time. “ _No_.” It was too bad that Bruce wasn’t in charge anymore. Dick had more important things to worry about right now, like keeping Jason and Bruce and Alfred and _Gotham_ in one piece.

“Angels?” Jason repeated slowly, his eyebrows furrowing. “Like… the halo wearing, trumpet playing, _cielo_ hanging ones?”

Dick closed his eyes at the instant burst of information that overwhelmed his skull. The trumpets were trumpets of war, the halos helmets that were tantamount to miniature barriers. And Heaven… It was far from the picture of perfection religion made it out to be. Lucifer’s fall had left marks behind on it, scorch marks that could never be healed, which was why the seraphs and the archangels were mankind’s protectors.

They were all that stood in the way.

Fuck, that was hard to get used to. He was just relieved he hadn’t run into a case of information overload yet because he was pretty sure he’d have to just shut down to even process any of it. He blew out a rough breath. “Sort of, yeah.” Dick sat on the edge of the desk and summoned his wings once more. A familiar feeling of warmth spread throughout him followed by a small breath escaping as the thin beacons of light illuminated the dim area.

Overhead, a few bats screeched in alarm and flew towards the tunnel’s opening to escape into the dark night.

Bruce clenched his jaw in frustration. He didn’t even know which way to face because the screeching bats overhead and their probing echolocation disoriented him. “Dick,” he stated firmly once more, “I don’t know what you’re thinking - though I think that is the problem itself here. You’re _not_. There is absolutely no reason to further involve Jason in any of this.”

Dick felt guilty ignoring Bruce, but Bruce wouldn’t get this. He wouldn’t understand why this was necessary. This information, pulling Jason into this life, it was going to be the only thing that saved him in the end.

Jason glanced at Bruce, but he was more focused on the wings spreading out from Dick’s back and what the asshole was implying. His lips thinned a little as his eyebrows furrowed. “They don’t _look_ like angel wings. Where’s the big white wings and the halo and all that _mierde_?”

“I’m a seraph,” Dick corrected, “which is kind of like… an upgraded angel, I guess you could say.” Higher than an angel and around the same level as an archangel just with plenty of crossover. 

“So you’re not human.” Jason didn’t sound like he completely believed him, though Dick couldn’t really blame him. It made more sense for him to be a meta. A hell of a lot more sense. The teen watched him with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to get some kind of reading off of him.

“I like to think of myself as human?” Dick remarked awkwardly, though he sounded almost uncertain, which had it lilting at the end. “I didn’t know anything about this until I turned eighteen.” He cleared his throat when Jason opened his mouth to question him further. “I just wanted to warn you that demons are a thing, okay? That’s the only reason I’m mentioning _any_ of this. Here in Gotham, I’ve ran into a lot over the past year and a half, and if you’re going to be Robin, I want you to be prepared for that.’’

Jason felt like his head was about to freaking explode right then and there because this? This defeated all freaking realms of possibilities, of _rationality_ , because he didn’t give much stock in the whole Heaven/Hell thing. It had driven his mom crazy, who had religiously carried around this absolutely beautiful rosario with small little sapphires and rubies interlaid - and it had broken her heart when she woke up one morning to find out her darling ol’ husband had sold it for beer money. For mere _dollars_.

There was no fucking way in hell Dick was some kind of angel.

“Okay, I’m ignoring the Robin part because first, I want us to pretend I believe you for even a second,” he said slowly, looking back at him after a moment. “How the hell is this even possible?”

“There’s a lot that’s possible, Jay.” Dick gave him a small, hesitant smile. “That’s the beauty of life, though - especially in our crazy world. There’s a lot more to it, of course, but none of it,” his reincarnation, Remiel, visions, “is important.”

There was a loud slam behind Dick as Bruce stood, cane digging into ground hard enough that it almost looked as if it could break. The man’s lips were curled back into a hard frown, and the sightless eyes almost seemed to _glare_ in their direction. “Making him Robin isn’t necessary,” Bruce said coldly, “and it isn’t going to happen.” He couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ , champion this idea or stand aside to allow it to happen. “In case you’ve forgotten, Dick, _I’m_ his guardian.” And like this, he couldn’t ensure Jason was as trained as he needed to be. He could help some, but there was still so little he could actually _do_ , and without the ability to make damn sure Jason would be okay out there…

He couldn’t risk his son.

Dick clenched his jaw, knowing this was going to be an argument. “Jason, can you excuse us?”

“Didn’t we already talk about this? No more secrets,” Jason repeated his argument from before.

“ _Now_ , Jason,” Bruce said shortly. “Go upstairs. Dick and I need to talk.”

Jason faltered before his eyes hardened. “Shouldn’t my opinion matter in this? Why do you guys get to hash out what I can and can’t do, but I can’t be here to argue my case? How is that fair?”

“Jason,” Bruce repeated lowly, causing the teen to growl under his breath and throw his hands up into the air.

“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll be upstairs.” Jason stomped up the stairs, and Dick’s gaze lingered there for a moment before he sighed and faced Bruce right now.

“He’s too immature for this,” Bruce told him bluntly. “That right there should tell you everything.”

Dick stared at him in disbelief. “I’m pretty sure I was worse since I was, you know, _nine_ when I became Robin. He’s twelve. He’s allowed to be immature. But he also needs something to keep him _grounded_. He could’ve died tonight, B. Not because he ran away like all kids do when they get pissed at their families. No, because he tried to _jump into_ a situation without caring about the danger to himself. All because that’s what was _right_. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to someday plan a funeral because he picked a fight he couldn’t win just because we didn’t prepare him.”

“This isn’t a fight I should’ve ever involved you in though,” Bruce retorted. “Because you were a child. I told you before, I’ve been able to see a lot more clearly since the accident. I’ve had time to reflect. I thought I was helping you by putting you on the streets with me, but I wasn’t. All I was really doing was assuaging my own desire for vengeance.” He closed his eyes. “And look where that has brought us now. You hate wearing the cowl, bearing the mantle. I know you do. But you feel like that’s what you have to do because that’s what I’ve made you think, and I’m sorry for that.”

But that was why he couldn’t let this happen to Jason.

“Bruce…” Dick trailed off before shaking his head. “You can’t blame yourself for that. I was sneaking out to get proof against Zucco back then. You did it to protect me, not anything else, and you know what? I needed it. Robin. I don’t think anything would’ve made sense again after the circus if you hadn’t given me that chance. And that’s what I’m trying to give Jason here. A chance. He needs something to help him deal with his past just like Robin and Batman helped us to do the same. Something to empower him.” _Something to keep that future with the tombstone from happening._ He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. “Bruce, I won’t let anything happen to him. You have my word, so please, trust me on this.” His gaze was imploring, though ultimately wasted on Bruce.

The businessman sighed and took a seat back in the chair. Unseeing eyes were narrowed at the ground and there was a furrow to his brow. “There’s a lot at stake here,” he said quietly at last, looking older than Dick remembered him being. Sometimes, it seemed like he’d aged far quicker since the accident. “Too much.” 

“I know,” Dick said quietly, moving closer to him. He took a seat on the edge of the desk, blue eyes searching Bruce’s face for some kind of sign as to what he was thinking about. “But I can do a lot more than I could back then. I _can_ protect him.” And he would. “Please, Bruce,” he said, voice growing softer, “trust me with this. I wouldn’t even be suggesting it if I didn’t think it was the only way to keep him safe.” A pause, and then even quieter, “I had a vision.”

“A vision?” Bruce questioned quietly, his lips pressing together.

Dick closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly, “and I know you don’t believe in them, I’ve heard it before, _I know_ , but… there was a tombstone with Jason’s name on it and that’s what will happen if we don’t change the path everything is already on.”

“Or it will change everything _onto_ that very same path,” Bruce countered. “ _That’s_ why I don’t believe in them. They’re unpredictable and give a false sense of control. This might very well be the catalyst that causes that future.”

“It isn’t though,” Dick argued. “I’d know it. I’d _feel_ it. And this feels right. Giving him Robin. Please, Bruce, _trust me_.”

Bruce went silent. He went silent for far too long, and Dick was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to respond when the man finally said, “Fine. But you’ll take the training regimen I gave you and double it. I want a year’s worth of training before he even _touches_ the street. Is that understood?”

Dick felt relief fill him. “Thank you, Bruce. Thanks. You won’t regret this.”

Bruce didn’t feel any comfort from the words. Instead, something hard formed in the pit of his stomach, twisting itself into a wave of unease that wouldn’t quite abate.

He hoped Dick was right. Things were set in motion now, and whatever happened from here on out could only be laid at his own feet for agreeing to this.

~*~

Everything, _everything_ , had gone so fucking wrong. So, so fucking wrong.

Dick’s fingers shook as they traced a bloodied, ash stained cheek. “Wake up for me, Jay,” he urged softly. “Come on. You can do it, kiddo. Open those pretty blues, tell me to fuck off again. Come on. You can do it.” His voice grew shakier with each word, pent up emotion building up higher and higher as every second passed away.

Every second where Jason didn’t open his eyes, where he didn’t move, where he didn’t even _breathe_. He was just… still. So, _so_ fucking still.

“Little Wing?” Jason’s head lolled limply in his hold. “Fuck,” Dick whispered. He pressed his face against the dark and tangled curly hair, body shaking as tears slid down his cheeks. “I really, really need you to wake up. Please… please.” He knew he’d get no response. He’d never get another one.

The last words he’d have ever said to him were from an argument that never should have gotten as heated as it did.

Dick swallowed hard before lifting his head after several minutes had slipped by. His eyes traced every inch, noting every cut, every bruise, every burn… Each and every one was his fault. “This was supposed to protect you. This wasn’t - fuck, it wasn’t supposed to happen.” He’d taken every precaution over the past few years, had trained Jason until he dropped from exhaustion, to keep this from happening. But in the end, Bruce had been right. Every single thing that he’d done to prevent this - all it did was make it happen.

This was his fault. Jason had had so much going for him, and Dick had fucking ruined that for him from day one because of these stupid visions, because of fucking Remiel and Heaven and fucking angelic duty. He had ruined Jason’s life.

And it was too late to fix anything.

“Oh starry, starry night,” he whispered, tracing Jason’s face once more as something inside of him turned numb. Tears continued to slide down his cheeks, his voice low and raw as he continued the poem, the one Jason had quoted for him so many times that it was just permanently stuck in his head now with no escape. “This is how I want to die.” His throat caught on the last word, and he had to swallow again. “Into that rushing… into that rushing beast of the night… sucked up by that great dragon… to split from my life with no flag, no belly… no cry.”

Thunder boomed overhead as his face fell back to press into Jason’s hair, his body trembling.

“I’m so sorry.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. Only a brief glimpse into what Robin Jay with Batman Dick would be like, but do not fear! There will be numerous oneshots following this fic which will definitely delve into how that dynamic played out. 
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Pendejo - bastard  
> Paja - bullshit  
> Cabrón - dumbass  
> Ave Maria - A prayer to the Virgin Mary used in Catholic worship and used to denote exasperation in Jason's case.  
> A lo hecho, pecho - In the face of deeds done, present a full chest.  
> Mierde - shit  
> El Cielo - Heaven


	3. Falling (Like Ashes to the Ground)

Part Three: Falling (Like Ashes to the Ground)

 

_“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12_  

~*~

  
_It was an indescribable feeling. The rage. The bloodthirst. What was even more indescribable was the way that it settled into the very marrow of his bones, becoming more a part of him than even the blood pumping in his veins. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt rage. It had been mother’s milk for him since he’d been young - just as nourishing and just as powerful in keeping him moving along._

_And then somehow along the way, he’d forgotten. He’d been blinded._

_But when the world itself was aflame around him, he remembered with startling clarity the power and fear that lay within rage, within_ wrath _._

_And with it, he curled his fingers around that brief spark of light so erroneously termed as life and pulled until the flames roared once more._

_And he did not burn._

_~*~_

  
“Demons run when a good man goes to war.” Lips curled back into a faint smirk before he took another long drag out of a cigarette. A plume of smoke slipped through parted lips before he extinguished the cigarette against the rooftop beside him and angled the sniper rifle downwards with a single teal eye peeking through the scope. The man on the other end moved around inside of his office, shouting some kind of bullshit if the way he was jabbing his business associate in the chest with a snarl on his face was anything to go by. Whatever the asshole was throwing a fit over, it clearly wasn’t sitting well with the associate, who was starting to turn as red in the face as his target was. All he was doing was making more and more enemies.

Fucking amateur. The _pendejo_ knew he had more than a few hits on him - the busy little bee that the fucker was - and yet here he was, standing around near windows with his guard fucking nonexistent.

They just didn’t make bad guys like they used to.

“Night will fall and drown the sun,” he murmured under his breath, the muzzle of the gun following the man slowly, methodically. “When a good man goes to war.” There were easier ways to do this, but this was the more conservative path out of his options, and since he was trying to keep a low profile for a little while longer…

No need to draw unnecessary attention from _los que mandan_ , the powers that be. He had enough shit breathing down his neck at the moment.

“Just what are you doing?” he muttered under his breath, watching as his target rummaged around in his desk drawers. His finger twitched on the trigger before he forced it to relax. His jaw clenched though, getting impatient. He just needed him to turn around so he’d have that positive fucking I.D. that he had the right guy, and then he could be done with this and crack open a few beers.

Almost in direct response, he felt that familiar, deep rooted anger surge within his chest, focusing instantly on the sudden insatiable urge _to kill, to bleed, to shred - the fucker looked like a screamer, and he wondered just how loud he could get as his knife twisted in his -_ He growled under his breath and shook his head sharply. He needed to focus right now, and that promoted too many distractions, no matter the temptation.

“Friendship dies and true love lies,” the dark haired man continued lowly to keep his focus, sharp eyes never missing a beat of the man’s movement. “Night will fall and the dark will rise.”  He felt the presence a moment before he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He swiveled around with a handgun drawn from his jacket and raised. Concealed eyes narrowed from underneath the dark hood at the black and blue clad hero standing across the rooftop from him, panting and clearly out of breath.

“Jason,” Dick breathed, looking as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, _who_ he was seeing.

“Dickface,” Jason returned neutrally, the gun never wavering as his finger tightened on the trigger.

_When a good man goes to war._

Two Weeks Before

“There’s a new player in Gotham.”

Dick side eyed where Bruce was sitting at the computer as he went down with another push up. “There’s always a new player in Gotham.” It was Gotham. She wasn’t exactly exclusive.

“That doesn’t make him any less dangerous,” Bruce informed him, a hard edge to his tone that Dick brushed off.

“True.” Dick pushed himself back so that he could sit cross legged on the mat. “But once again, there’s always a new player in Gotham, and even when they become old players, they’re still exactly that. And yet how many are still out there?” Too many because the moment he got them behind bars, they were out again, it felt like. He ran a hand back through his hair. “Look, just give me a file on him, and I’ll check him out. What’s he done so far?”

Bruce’s lips thinned at the jaded response. “It would be more appropriate to ask what he _hasn’t_ done so far because the list would be far shorter. The long and short of it is that there are a number of murders over the past week that can be laid at his feet.”

Dick’s eyes sharpened behind his sunglasses. He stood and made his way over towards the desk to peer over Bruce’s shoulder at the braille text. “A lot of mobsters and cartel leaders.” Not a big loss. The guy still needed to be stopped because that wasn’t the way things could or should go - after all, according to the big man in the sky, no one was devoid of the ability to be redeemed -  but Dick wasn’t about to shed a tear for assholes who had probably hurt more than their fair share of people.

At Bruce’s disapproving glance in his general direction, likely from Dick’s neutral tone, Dick rolled his eyes. “You know my stance on this. Killing is wrong. I get it better than you do. But don’t expect me to get upset that these assholes can’t hurt another person again. Not after Jason.” 

Dick typed into the computer database to bring up the actual visual case files. The first thing that came up were blurry images of the man. None of them gave a good look at his face, though he caught the glint of something covering his face. A half mask, maybe? Not a complete one, at least, since he was pretty sure he could make out a frown from the profile shot, but it was hard to tell with how the hood of the man’s jacket shielded it some.

He sifted through the crime scene photos, probably courtesy of Nighteye or Oracle, and frowned. Some of the kills were - well, he didn’t want to say _simple_ because he didn’t think the process of killing anything or anyone should ever be called that, but still.

The guy was skilled.

But that wasn’t what caught his attention. While some looked like pretty standard kills - shots to the head, slit throats, other things that turned Dick’s stomach a little but was far from uncommon - others looked… less so. And by less so, he meant throats that looked _torn open_ , though by teeth or claws, he couldn’t tell. Others were torn into literal pieces. _Pieces_. Body parts this way and that, chest carved open and devoid of a heart.

The corners of Dick’s eyes tightened. “A demon, maybe.” Humans could be as sick as all that too, one only needed to look at the Joker, but this… “It fits the motif of an ira demon. Demons of wrath. Little self control, fetish for blood. Ergo, messy crime scenes.” Meaning it very well could be just a matter of time before the creature turned its eyes onto innocents.

Time was of the essence here.

“I’ll get in contact with Tim and Babs, see if they can scrounge up anything more.” The demon had to be inside of a human host for him to not sense it though, which had him wary. Clearly, it was a higher level demon; otherwise, there wouldn’t be clean and controlled kills. They would all be like the latter ones.

Just what he needed right now.

Bruce nodded and stood. “Let me know of any developments,” he ordered before walking towards the stairs once more. Dick’s eyes slipped over towards the left behind cane briefly. Bruce used it here and there, but nowhere near like he used to have to.

Not since Jason, and not since Batman stopped gracing the skies of the Gotham skyline.

 

Dick sighed at the files Tim handed to him the following afternoon. “There’s a lot more here than I was expecting.”

Tim raised an eyebrow at him as he sat back down. “Isn’t that a good thing?” He picked up his mug, black with an emblazoned red S-shield logo, and took a small sip out of the steaming coffee. “I mean, I would’ve thought it was a good thing. Means we can track this guy’s patterns and corner him in.”

“Except backing a demon into a corner is never a smart move,” Dick replied absently, already having one of the files flipped open to look through. Apparently, he’d been pretty active in Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Russia over the past couple years, only to disappear six months ago from the public eye.

“And it means a lot more paperwork for you,” Tim remarked, reading straight to the situation, and Dick chuckled softly, a brief grin crossing his lips.

“You caught me, Timmy.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Looks like I’ve got some not so light reading to do.” Another fun, sleepless night.

Tim’s lips curved upward into a smile that was soft on the edges before he sighed and sat his mug back down. “Be careful, okay? I know you’ve handled demons before, but this one seems, well, _more_. I haven’t seen one with this level of cognizance and awareness yet.”

And the only ones Dick had seen anywhere near this level were from dreams, old memories, and those particular ones… They were more than just the incarnations of their particular sin. They _were_ the sin.

Nevertheless, he slugged Tim lightly in the shoulder. “I’m a seraph. Whoever this is doesn’t have anything on me.”

Tim didn’t look impressed. “From what you’ve told me and my studies of different theologies, being an angel doesn’t seem to make you anything more than a meta here on earth, meaning yeah, the right opponent could destroy you.”

“Lalala, I can’t hear you,” Dick responded lightly, squeezing the shoulder before letting go. “I’ll be careful, Tim,” he promised a moment later, sounding a little more serious. “Let me know if you find anything else out about our little friend, okay?”

“Will do.” Tim’s eyes followed Dick as he left, the corners of his eyes tightening. There was a strange, twisted feeling of unease clawing at his stomach, almost as if a warning of things to come, but he couldn’t pinpoint it to any exact thing.

It just felt… off.

“At least they learned a lesson and kept you off the streets,” a voice murmured against his ear. Before Tim even had the time to do more than stiffen, everything around him turned to darkness.

 

Dick could count on one hand the number of times he’d felt his heart stop in his chest, and each had been followed by what he’d label as defining moments of his life. The death of his parents was one - the start of his new life with Bruce and the Gotham nightlife. The moment his powers came in was another - it marked the end of the life he knew, the one he’d clung to with both hands; the start of a new Batman and the end of the life that Bruce had built up for himself. And then came one of the worst; Jason’s death, which was still so fucking fresh and painful. It marked the end of Batman, the end of so many things...

Then came when Joker had kidnapped Tim from the Clocktower. Another defining moment, a reminder of what was at stake and why he had to be better than the criminals he faced out on the streets.

And now…

“You’re positive that it was the Red Hood?” Bruce’s voice crackled over the comm.

Dick eyed the claw that was left behind on the desk, one that the demon would have had to literally pull off of his own hand to leave behind as a calling card. There was a reason behind it, but he couldn’t fathom what the hell it was. “Yeah,” he replied at last as he put the claw in an evidence bag and tucked it into his belt. “He made it pretty obvious.”

“It’s a trap then,” Bruce surmised grimly.

“Of course it is.” It was the nature of the game between Heaven and Hell. A game that Tim shouldn’t have been caught up within. “He’ll be somewhere nearby if the point of this is for me to find him. Until I do… stay indoors, okay, Agent Malone? If his beef is just because I’m an angel, he’ll come after you too.”

Bruce’s lips thinned. “I can take care of myself, Nightwing,” he responded coolly.

“That’s not the point,” Dick snapped, frustration and fear building up into the outburst. “I’m not losing another person in my family. I’m not even going to risk it. Just stay put, and I’ll keep you updated.”

“Watch yourself,” Bruce snapped back. “And if you don’t keep me updated, expect to see me out there in the cape and cowl.”   
  
Dick scrubbed a hand over his face, not even wanting to _try_ to get into why that was such a bad idea because Bruce knew. Bruce knew, and he was just being the overprotective pain in the ass parent he always was, but it wasn’t helping when Dick’s nerves were already shot to hell. “I’ll keep you updated,” he repeated before disconnecting from the call and pulling up a map of the city through Tim’s database. If Red Hood wanted him to find him so badly, then he’d have left Tim’s phone on so that he could triangulate its general area by using the cell towers and… there it was.

 

Jason pulled the ringing phone out of the kid’s pocket and brought it to his ear while ignoring the dark glare he was getting from the little brat. “I’m guessing you got my message, oh rat with wings.”

“What do you want?” Dick demanded immediately - probably already on his way over here, Jason was sure.

“I want you and Daddy Dearest to stay the hell away from the operations I’m running here. I’d hate for anyone to get hurt.” Jason watched the boy - Tim - struggle with the bonds. If left alone, he was positive the kid would be able to bust out of the rope on his own. Resourceful kid. Almost got him with some holy water as he’d been getting him situated.

It was too bad they let him get mixed up in this mess.

“Daddy Dearest? I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Dick responded after a beat.

Jason tsked and stepped away from the struggling kid. “You sure about that? I think it’d break his little ol’ heartless heart to hear that. One kid dies. The other denies him. Tragic stuff there that Hallmark ain’t got nothing on.” 

Silence and then a low and curt, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Dick sounded a lot more tense, a lot more wary, and that meant Jason’s job was done. “Whatever is going on here, Ti--Nighteye has nothing to do with it. You’ve only gone after criminals so far, not innocents. Don’t break that streak now, Hood.”

Jason rolled his eyes beneath the dark red half mask. It covered from just above his eyebrows to part of the way down his nose, leaving the downward twist of his mouth completely visible. “Sure you don’t. I’ll be leaving the kid behind here - you’re tracking his phone, right? - as a sign of good faith. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay away from you and yours. Capiche?” He didn’t want anything to do with them. Death broke all bonds, didn’t it?

And he definitely didn’t trust himself around the kid for much longer anyway. Not with the way his head was pounding. His tongue flicked out to brush over his teeth absently. It had been too long since he ate last and being this close to the teen wasn’t helping. It was like being beside a gourmet steak after weeks of stale, left-in-the-fridge-too-long takeout considering his usual diet of Gotham’s worst. Each beat of the kid’s heart just drove that further home, sharp cramps twisting his stomach up.

“You know I can’t do that,” Dick retorted, and Jason’s eyes flickered around his surroundings, trying to estimate how much time he had. It depended on whether the repressed winged rat was using his wings or not. Probably not given Bruce’s feelings over them, but he wasn’t taking anything for chance.

“So what you’re saying is there’s no reason why I shouldn’t gut the kid like a fish here and now?” _Yes. Bloody him up. Make him scream. The louder the better, and then right when he can’t anymore, tear your teeth straight through his -_ Jason shook his head sharply, staggering a little in his next step, which didn’t go unnoticed by the teen’s sharp blue eyes.

Shit. He swept a hand back through his hair, his fingers curling into the dark strands as he swallowed. He could hear Dick talking, but it sounded like white noise compared to the roar of pure _need_ that was drowning everything else out. He clenched his eyes shut tighter.

“Just get here before I change my mind and then stay the fuck out of my way,” Jason snapped before hanging up. He threw the phone against the supports holding up the water tower so hard that it snapped in half. Not that it mattered. Dick knew the general direction anyway by now, so he’d find the kid sooner rather than later. That was the extent of Jason’s responsibility over the matter. What happened from there was on Dick and Bruce’s shoulders.

“What did the phone ever do to you?” the kid muttered under his breath.

Jason pointed a finger at him. “You. Don’t test me right now,” he ground out. “The winged asshole will be here soon enough to grab you. I’m out. Let’s try not to meet like this again, got it?”

The kid stared at him, and there was something piercing about his gaze that was just so fucking _Bruce_ that Jason didn’t like any part of - and that was saying something since the king asshole couldn’t even _see_. “Considering _you’re_ the one that kidnapped _me_ , I’m not so sure why you’re pinning this on me.”

He growled under his breath and turned away. “Just remind the others to stay the hell away, and I won’t _have to_ kidnap you again.” He didn’t go after innocents. He couldn’t. He went to take off, already pulling a grappling hook out of his jacket, but the kid just _had_ to keep on talking.

“What’s your game plan?”

Jason would have snorted, but something about the kid’s tone gave him a moment of pause. He was silent before tipping his head back to look up at the dark, Gotham sky whose stars were interrupted by the bright lights of the city and the brief haze of pollution, though the latter added an extra sheen that almost made the stars seem… brighter. Good from bad, bad from good. The ever revolving cycle.

“It moves. They are all alive,” he quoted quietly, though the air was still and quiet enough around them that Tim heard the hoarse voice almost clear as day. “Even the moon bulges in its orange irons… to push children, like a _god_ , from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars…” He trailed off and shook his head. “There’s a balance for a reason, kid. I’m taking care of the shit that Batman or Nightwing or whatever he’s going by now never did.”

He was protecting the people of Gotham his own way. The only way he could. Before the kid could get out another word, Jason was gone, leaving Tim behind with a furrowed brow to ponder the quote. The ropes binding his wrists were frayed from where he’d been rubbing them against the sharp scaffold behind him, though he’d waited it out to see what the demon had to say.

Except he hadn’t seemed like the demons they normally ran into, and this one…

Tim was rubbing his wrists when Nightwing dropped by the water tower barely a minute later, the black and blue clad man practically stumbling against the sudden feeling of ground beneath his feet as he raced to his side. “Tim!” In seconds, hands were moving all over the teen as if searching out imaginary wounds.

Tim sighed. “I’m fine, Wing. He didn’t hurt me.” Well, except for the blow that had knocked him out in the first place.

“This time,” Dick muttered, finally pulling back, satisfied that his little brother seemed to be in one piece. He ran a hand back through wind swept hair, panting and clearly out of breath, though he tried to hide it. He swallowed and took a deep breath before asking, “Did you see what way he went?”

Tim’s lips thinned and his eyes flickered away. Red Hood was unstable. There was no getting around that. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that they needed to capture him. But this was something they couldn’t rush into without getting more information because what he’d said towards the end… that hadn’t sounded like the ramblings of a bloodthirsty demon. “No,” he said at last. It wasn’t a complete lie. He could _surmise_ which way he went from the angle he’d taken off at, but he didn’t know for sure.

He wanted to investigate this before sending Dick crashing into this one. There had been something familiar about the accent. The way it lilted around softer vowels at the start of a word while placing a seemingly absent minded emphasis on any that fell in between. The way his voice lowered in pitch around hard consonants… It caused a rough edge to his words; a Gothamite edge, if Tim’s suspicions were right. It might be a clue about who the demon was possessing - even if he hadn’t acted like someone who was possessed.

Dick paused, bright blue eyes flickering across Tim’s face from where they were hidden behind his mask. “Timmy?”

“I think we need to regroup for now,” the teen said carefully. “Think over everything and re-profile him.”

Dick… could follow that logic, yeah, even if he didn’t want to. His eyes narrowed on Tim quizzically. “I guess,” he said slowly, “but while we spend time on that, there could be another victim out there.”

“Except as things are right now, we really _don’t_ have a pattern except for the fact that they’re always scumbags.” Tim grimaced. “And now that we know he’s made the connection to Malone and Batman and to you…”

“Right.” The demon had clearly been watching them. For how long, Dick wasn’t sure, but long enough, which meant there was a chance he knew who they were under the masks too... Hell, it wouldn’t be too hard to connect Timothy Drake to them anyway since Bruce had taken over his guardianship.

This was a Code Red situation.

“Let’s get back to the Cave and work through this,” Dick said at last, even though it looked like every part of him wanted to chase after the demon. Tim nodded, though his eyes flickered in the direction the Red Hood had disappeared towards.

There was something more here.

 

Back at the Cave, Tim sat cross legged on a chair Alfred had pulled up and sipped on the comforting mug of coffee. The momentary silence it bought gave him time to reflect over the events while Bruce scoured their databases and Dick swung around on the steady rings hanging from the gymnastics station in the back - each working with their preferred method of thought progression.

“He talked about keeping a balance,” he said at last, “about doing what Batman and Nightwing never did. Or do. Why would a demon care about stopping crime?”

“It wouldn’t,” Dick replied, expression tense as he did another flip. He caught himself on the rings. “Demons all thrive on violent sins because they twist the original emotion into something darker. Lust begets rape. Envy begets murders of passion. Wrath begets vengeful retribution. Everything shifts because that emotion is all the demon has capacity for.”

Tim frowned and thought about how wistful Hood had sounded when looking at the stars and talking about a balance. “You’re positive of that?” Because something about that generalization didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t match up with what he’d seen, and if something didn’t match up, then there were outliers waiting just around the bend to turn the data on its side.

“Positive.” There was no hesitation in Dick’s response. “Everything that I - that Remiel - have ever seen only show demons as self-serving, destructive forces.” For as long as Tim had known Dick, there was a careful distinction whenever Dick spoke of Remiel, as if asserting them as two separate beings even though that wasn’t how Bruce described it.

“All of that would be subjective then. Remiel’s bias could color those old memories, right?” Tim asked.

Dick shook his head. “No, not like this, Tim. His attitude on the matter might be there, but it doesn’t influence the actual images.”

“Then what about the host still being in control?” Tim tried.

The reincarnated angel dropped from the rings into a crouch before standing up straight and stretching an arm behind his head. “The first thing the demon usually does is kill the host,” Dick explained with a faint grimace. “It’s easier to control a meat suit if that’s all it is. No backseat driver fighting to steer.”

Tim lips pressed together to form a thin line, his eyes flickering away. That didn’t explain why the demon let him live unscathed. Was it some kind of cat and mouse game? Let them know that he was out there and could pick them off whenever he wanted to just to leave them panicking?

Bruce was frowning, his eyes narrowed at nothing as unseeing eyes flickered from one side to the other in thought. “Did he say something to you aside from his bastardized version of balance, Tim?”

The fifteen year old sighed and sat his mug down. “Just quoted some poem or song or something. I don’t even know what it was. But… I don’t know, he didn’t seem like he wanted to fight anyone here. He emphasized to Dick that he wouldn’t touch us if we didn’t touch him, and like the reports have shown, we know he hasn’t gone after anyone innocent.”

“Yet,” Bruce corrected. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Is it, though?” Tim asked. “Because I think there’s more to this than just that. He _acted_ human. I wouldn’t have even known he wasn’t if Dick hadn’t told me before.” And he’d been struggling with something. Probably the demon, if Tim had to make a bet on anything. Because there had been a moment there where Hood had almost looked _unhinged_ and was muttering unintelligibly to himself.  “All I’m saying is maybe there’s still a person in there, fighting against the demon, waiting for someone - _us, the good guys_ \- to save him. Don’t we owe it to the person he once was to look into it at the very least instead of just writing him off because it’s an unprecedented happening?”

“Normally, I would agree with you, but this demon has already killed so many. Without solid proof that the person he was is still alive in there, our hands are tied. We have to let it go, Tim,” Bruce told him, though Dick remained silent. There was a small furrow to the man’s brow before he crossed his arms over his chest. He settled back against the desk, his hidden eyes situated on Tim fully.

“You’re right,” he said at last. Tim’s eyes widened as he looked back at him, though for once, he couldn’t get any kind of read off of what Dick was thinking. Dick glanced at Bruce. “I mean, I’m hardly an expert on the matter or anything. There are how many angels in Heaven? Just because Remiel never saw anything like this doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Worst case, we tried, and we at least make sure some frat boy demon isn’t disturbing his eternal rest. But like Timmy said, we owe it to whoever the Hood used to be to _try_.” He clapped Tim on the shoulder and squeezed. “If there’s someone still in there, we’ll save him.”

“It’s a waste of time,” Bruce retorted firmly. It wasn’t always easy to read Bruce, but the tight clench of his jaw made it clear Dick’s declaration left him with a feeling of unease, and the white of his knuckles on the arm of the chair... “And dangerous. If you see an opening to force him back into Hell, you do it.”

Frustration flickered within light blue eyes. “And if I’d be killing an innocent person in the process?” Dick snapped. “You’d be okay with that?”

“Of course I wouldn’t be,” Bruce retorted, “but you know as well as I do that that would not be the case. What Tim is implying is unprecedented for a reason. It speaks to its impossibility rather than its rarity.”

“Really? And do you have any proof of this or is this just you worrying more about the dangers than what should be done, what’s right?” Dick retorted. Tim inwardly grimaced, but it was hardly an unusual exchange between the two. Jason’s death had made things… rocky, to say the least. Dick pulled something out of the pouch at his belt and placed it on the desk. “Can you just run tests on this?” Tim peered forward to see what it was.

Bruce’s lips curled downwards as his fingers brushed over the desk until they came into contact with the item in question. A frown crossed his lips as he rubbed his thumb over it. “A claw?” he surmised.

“Yeah. He left it behind back at the tower to let me know who had taken Tim.” Dick’s lips thinned. “I don’t know what, if anything, we can get off of it, but I figured it’s worth a try.”

“I’ll see what I can find. However, because of the differences in genetics, it could take a couple days to break its particular genetic code,” he warned.

“I’ll help with it,” Tim piped up. “I mean, it’s not like either of you are going to let me leave anytime soon or anything, so if I’m staying here I might as well help. Two heads are better than one and all that.”

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face before nodding. “I’d welcome the help,” he agreed at last. He sounded more reluctant than anything. However, someone to be his eyes would make the process run more swiftly.

Dick’s eyes flickered between them. “While the two of you work on that, I’m going back out on patrol. While he’s high priority, Hood can’t be our _only_ priority. Let me know if you guys beat the odds and find something while I’m out.”

“Will do,” Tim replied absently, already having snagged the claw from Bruce to examine it under the smaller lamp at the end of the desk. It was black, or at least that’s what it appeared to be until the light hit it, and then faint streaks of a darker red could be seen throughout. “Do you need all of it to run the scans?” He asked Bruce, itching to examine it himself.

Pale eyes stared impassively at the space below the computer screen, though an eyebrow did raise some. “As much as possible would be helpful.”

“Soooo I could take a quarter of it then?” Tim questioned with a hint of hope to his tone.

“Fine. The very tip of it _only_ because the most DNA would be saved for the root if it shares any of the same physiology as a fingernail torn from the base.”

“And on that note…” Dick shook his head before heading back out.

The two men worked quietly over the next couple hours - Bruce working to match the genetic markers found within the claw which boasted a combination of human and animal characteristics and Tim alternating between testing the durability of his portion of the claw and something else that involved significant amounts of writing and muttering.

“What are you muttering over there?” Bruce asked at last, a hint of frustration creeping into his tone. While it normally wouldn’t have bothered him past dry exasperation, it was hard for him to focus on decoding the genetic markers when his hearing kept hyperfocusing on the sound.  
  
Tim’s eyes flew over to him and blinked. “Sorry, Bruce.” He tapped his pencil against the paper. “The Red Hood threw some quotes out before he left, and I cross referenced what I could remember of the lines and found a poem by Anne Sexton. I’m trying to figure out if there’s some kind of code to it.”

Bruce figured he wouldn’t get a moment of silence until Tim figured it out, so he leaned back in his chair. “Which poem?”

“The Starry Night. I’m trying to figure out if Hood is supposed to be the dragon, the beast in the poem swallowing everything up in his path, or something else or just nothing and I’m overthinking it,” Tim muttered the last part and shook his head with a groan.

“The Starry Night,” Bruce repeated, closing his eyes briefly against the pang in his chest. It had been a while since he’d heard it last.

Tim frowned and watched him warily. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” The pale orbs opened once more. “And you’re right, you’re overthinking the matter. It’s just a poem spoken by a demon to throw you off.” Bruce clenched his jaw. “That’s all it is. To give it any further thought is a waste of time that we don’t have.”

“But you taught me that any piece of information can end up being important.”

“Not this,” Bruce retorted. “It’s just a poem. And even if he _is_ the beast in the poem, all it further cements is that he plans on evoking chaos through the city. That’s what the beast represents; the End. Death.”

“I don’t think so,” Tim said slowly. “It feels more like it’s calling attention to a kind of balance between light and dark.” And Hood had seemed so emphatic about there needing to be a balance.

_Come on, B. You know shit’s never that obvious._

_Oh really now? Then what is your interpretation of the poem?_

_It’s… about beauty. Life. The… The beauty of a turbulent, imperfect world as life moves in its own course. And yeah, it goes through death and all that, but that’s just part of the life cycle, you know?_

His fingers curled around the arm of his chair. “We’ll agree to disagree,” Bruce responded after a moment, his voice quieter than before. “That doesn’t change the fact that focusing on this poem is wasting time. Get back to work.” He ignored the eyes he could feel on him and felt for his braille keyboard once more. They had a job to do, and not doing said job would just put more people at risk.

   
Unfortunately, there was radio silence for the next week. No reports, no cases, nothing that could be tied to the Red Hood. Not that that meant anything. He’d proven to be smart enough that he could have easily switched up his normal methods to remain under the radar, but that wasn’t what Dick’s gut was telling him, though he tried not to depend on it too much since it had been wrong before.

And without any breaks yet in cracking the genetic code contained in the morbid looking claw... they were at a standstill for the time being.

He yawned as he joined Tim down in the Cave and hung over the back of the chair. “What’re you looking at? Alfred said you never went to bed - well,” Dick corrected, wrapping his arms around his brother from behind to squeeze him, “Alfred said that he forced you to go to bed, only for you to sneak back down here sometime after _he_ went to bed.” With Hood having already gone after him once, and neither Dick nor Bruce willing to tempt fate on whether he’d do it again, Tim had taken up a guest room here at the Manor, which had opened the teen up to all of Alfred’s mother henning that he and Bruce usually had to put up with alone.

“Because I figured out the missing piece in the code.” Tim scrubbed his hands over his eyes and groaned. “And I cracked it, like, thirty minutes ago, and it’s…” He swallowed. “It’s not…”

“It’s not what?” Dick asked slowly. Tim seemed anxious, almost jittery, and Dick had a feeling it had nothing to do with the empty mug of coffee sitting to the side. He leaned over Tim to tap into the system. “What did it come back with?”

“Ira demon, like we thought, mixed with human thanks to its host, like we thought.” A pause. “The DNA… I ran it through the database, you know? To see if we got any matches.”

“And we did, I’m assuming, which is why you’re acting so weird.” Dick sounded wary, already steeling himself. His eyes narrowed, unable to find anything recent on the scan.

Tim pushed Dick’s hands away from the keyboard and brought up the report from the hidden folder he’d concealed it in, though he didn’t say a word.

He didn’t need to.

Dick stared at the screen in disbelief, eyes flickering over the words again and again as if trying to make some kind of sense out of them when it felt like the floor was giving out underneath him. He clutched onto the back of the chair. “How many times did you run the scan?”

Tim looked up at him with a pained expression. “Five times so far. Same result. The good news is that it gives credence to our belief that the Red Hood isn’t full on demon mode. The host - _Jason_ \- is still in there; otherwise, it wouldn’t have known about you and Bruce and everything.”

Dick tuned him out after hearing the number, eyes glued to the small profile image of Jason residing on the corner of the screen. He was fifteen, just a few months before things went to hell in a handbasket. Just a few months before Dick had failed him completely. Only now, it turned out he’d failed him even more than he’d originally thought.

A demon. He closed his eyes and tried to remember how to breathe. When he was able to finally pull his thoughts together, he asked quietly, “Have you put the results into the database yet?” At the shake of Tim’s head, he nodded. “Good. Don’t. There’s no reason for Bruce to know just yet.”

Tim hesitated. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Dick barked a laugh. “Probably not. But it’s Jason. It’s - fuck, it’s _Jason_.” His voice cracked some on the name. And Bruce was adamant about the Hood needing exorcised, and he couldn’t rule out Bruce seeing it as even more of a need once he knew who the demon had taken over. The primary difficulty was that all exorcisms were built as worst case scenarios. They would only work if there was an actual demon possession in progress - meaning if they miscategorized someone as a demon and they were really just a sorry excuse for a human being, they remained unaffected.

If there _was_ a demon in there, however, the exorcism seared into their very being to burn them out of this plane. If a human soul _did_ somehow miraculously remain alongside the demon, it would be too twisted up within the demon to keep from following after. By condemning the demon to Hell, you condemned the human.

But it was Jason. Jason’s body. Jason’s voice on the phone - and fuck, no wonder he’d sounded so familiar. No wonder he hadn’t hurt Tim.

Jason was in there. He had to be.

He took a deep breath. “Timmy, can you start researching… well, something like…. soul splicing, I’m guessing? I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand back through his hair. “At the very least, start at souls and work our way from there. If Jay is still in there, we need to be able to separate the two.” He didn’t know how, but there had to be something after all these millenia. There wasn’t any other option. He swept a hand back through his tousled hair. “I’ll work through my head, see if Remiel might be holding out on something.”

“None of this will help if we can’t find him,” Tim pointed out quietly, sounding as if he hated to burst Dick’s bubble.

“We will.” Dick clenched his jaw. “He’s making a move somewhere; he’s just keeping it quiet. Careful. It makes sense. He knows the different camera angles, knows how to stay under the radar except when he _wants_ to be found…”

“But you and Bruce knew him better than anyone. If it’s Jason, what would he be planning?”

Dick’s eyes moved back to the screen, the orbs lingering on the baby faced fifteen year old and the mischievous glint captured within the teen’s eyes. “Something dangerous.”  
  


Now 

A small, warm breeze coming from the east coast off of nearby Gotham Harbor flickered through the air, its quiet rustling the only noise heard above the Gotham nightlife below. Jason’s grip tightened on the gun as the seconds dragged by, that familiar, poisonous stirring within his chest having him clench his jaw, though he didn’t react beyond that.

Dick didn’t seem to move or breathe, utterly still where he stood in front of him. His eyes flickered over the tight suit the man had taken to wearing these days after finding it impossible to look at Dick’s too open expression of turmoil for long. He’d always been one for attention, even as Batman. Those fucking flips of his had always been too showy, and now his outfit matched.

Fucking _cabrón_ just asking to get himself killed.

“You kidnapped Tim.” The matter of fact, almost _accusing_ remark seemed to tear through the illusion of silence that had built up over the rooftop.

Jason stared at him, his lips twisting downward in disbelief. “Five years, and that’s the first thing you say to me?” That poisonous feeling grew, its tendrils beginning to spread out further. “I returned your precious little Nighteye to you safe and fucking sound. I told you to stay out of my business if you wanted him to stay that way too, didn’t I? But you couldn’t _fucking_ help yourself.” He ground the backs of his molars.

Dick looked stricken for a brief moment before he shook his head. “Of course I couldn’t help myself,” he shot back, taking a step forward before stilling when Jason’s finger tightened around the trigger. He didn’t stop talking, even if his eyes were watching the gun warily. “How could I, knowing you’re here? I never wanted this for you.”

It was hard to look at Jason and see the man he was supposed to have become. And there was no way to deny that it was Jason because he’d recognize that messy mop of hair anywhere, even if there was a strand of white there that hadn’t been there before. He’d grown up though. A five o’clock shadow dusted along sharp jawbones that had been a little leaner at fifteen but still plagued by lingering baby fat the last time he’d seen him.   
  
Looking at him right now, all Dick could think about was all that had been taken by the Joker.

“Never wanted what?” Jason snapped back. “For me to fix all of the shit you and Bruce fucked up over the years? Never wanted me to _die_ because you thought letting Joker walk around was a great idea? Or what about after?” Because no one had ever told him that death would hurt. He faintly remembered masses, sitting next to his mom with his head on her shoulder, and talks about death being a release into a wonderful eternity.

Except that had been such a load of fucking bullshit because all he could remember from the time the flames went up to the moment he’d woken up in his grave was pain. And then that had quickly become replaced by rage and was the only way he’d summoned the strength to claw his way out of that fucking shithole.

Dick flinched and Jason laughed, the sound low and bitter, practically mocking. “What, don’t want to hear about how my soul took a detour straight into Hell?” He smirked, his eyes glittering darkly beneath the mask. “Guess I wasn’t good enough for those pearly gates after all.”

“That’s not what should’ve happened,” Dick retorted sharply, pain heavy in his tone. He couldn’t begin to imagine what Jason must have gone through. He was just a kid when he died. “None of it should have, but that last part… especially that last part. I don’t know why it happened, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.” If a kid like Jason could be condemned to Hell, then what hope did the rest of them have? There had to have been more going on. Something else. But Remiel was being fucking silent for once, the _one fucking time_ he could actually be helpful, but all he got was radio silence.

“It doesn’t matter. It happened. But I don’t care about any of that shit.” It was in the past, and he had bigger fish to fry than Dick or Bruce. They had fucked up, but they too were innocent.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t bloody Dick up a bit if the little angel pushed matters though. The thought sent a thrill through his body, his tongue instinctively flicking across sharp canines, which caught in the glint of the moonlight. He knew this because he saw the way Dick seemed to freeze up all over again. He laughed, a grin stretching across his lips.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” A dark amusement tinged the words. He slid the gun away back into its holster before pulling off the glove with his teeth. He spit it aside and flexed his fingers before letting the familiar warmth travel down to his fingertips a moment before they shifted, turning sharper, more angled. “Neat parlor trick, huh? A bitch to trim, sure, but they cut through things so _easily_.” Dick didn’t move or say anything, so he continued. “I know you guys have to have a case file on me by now. Like my handiwork?”

“Stop it.” Dick’s voice was quiet. “That’s the demon talking. Not you, Jay. None of that… none of that was _you_.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, it just barely visible over his mask. “You really think so, Dickface? Or is it just too hard for you to imagine poor, little Jason Todd as a killer because at the end of the day, we all know whose fault that would be, right?” It was entertaining to watch Dick squirm. It called to something primal deep within him, his eyes hovering on the outskirts of the hero’s form where he could catch the briefest glimpses of light and the small, little shadows that flickered with each barb shot at him.

The crossing of those little shadows and small rays of light was intoxicating.

“Stop it.

“What? Did I touch a nerve?” Jason’s grin grew. “Trust me, I’ve bathed in so much blood, you might as well call me a Bathory.”

“Stop.” Dick looked like he was shaking. Good. He wondered just how hard he’d have to push to make him snap.

“Oh come on. It’s not like you’re any stranger to blood. Wasn’t Remiel one of the first ones sent out on the battlefield? The angel of _mercy_ , except the kind of mercy you were offering put them to rest for good, if you know what I mean.”

Dick visibly flinched, likely as a swarm of memories slammed into him. Jason soaked in the flickering shadows, the sight sating some of the rage clawing through his chest like poison. His face was starting to hurt from how wide he was grinning. That’s what he was talking about.

“The only difference between what you did as Remiel and what I’m doing? I’m on the side of right whereas you struck wherever your God told you to,” Jason remarked, leaning back on the heels of his boots, satisfied. “Men, women, children… But me? I only go after the scumbags. The low of the low who feed on the _fear_ and the _pain_ of the ones your precious God would turn his back on.”

“That’s not the point. There isn’t any excuse for killing,” Dick retorted. He had to believe that, otherwise everything over the past few years, his struggle to try and be that same person Jason had looked up to, resisting the urge to make Joker stop laughing permanently, _everything_ \- it’d be for nothing. “You think I don’t know how much easier killing would be? But that’s the problem. It’s _easy_ , and I refuse to be like Remiel. Like Joker. Like any of those assholes who keep killing and killing and _killing_ because if you can justify it once,” an image of Joker with a bruised and bloodied face, still and unbreathing, “what’s to stop you from doing it again?”

Jason’s eyes hardened. “That’s just a pansy ass _mamahuevo_ excuse. If you’re so weak that you’d start going apeshit on everything, not just the scum of the scum, then you weren’t that far from the edge into being just like them from the start, were you?”

Dick clenched his jaw. “It’s called understanding the value of a human life. And yeah, do I think some of the assholes out there deserve to die? I do. One hundred percent. But who am I to make that kind of choice? Because who’s to say that someone wouldn’t think the same of Dick Grayson? Or Nightwing?”

“But by standing back, those assholes keep killing more and more, so at the end of the day, isn’t there _still_ blood on your hands?”

“That’s enough,” Dick snapped.

“What? Mad because you know it’s true?” Jason taunted. “That’s the difference between the two of us. You see, I prioritize the innocent over fucking _pendejos_ like Joker or Two Face or Bane. I put them down so that they can’t come back up. And with my new _abilities_ , it’s even easier. So yeah, there’s blood on my hands, but better their blood than a kid’s.”

“That’s the demon, Little Wing. I don’t know why you can’t see that. That need for blood? The obsession, the hyperfocus, on it? That’s the ira demon. That’s not you,” Dick retorted. He took a step towards him. “Come back to the Cave with me. Nighteye and I are already looking for ways to exorcise the demon, and then… then you have a second chance. People don’t usually get that.” But if anyone deserved it, Dick knew Jason did.

“The ira demon, huh?” Jason murmured, staring at the rooftop. His lips twitched faintly. “You really think I’d share my body, my _mind_ , with a parasite?” His laughter boomed in the small space, his head falling backwards as a grin stretched across his lips. “Oh Dickface, how fucking _blind_ do you have to be to not see that there’s only one person home in here, or are you just that afraid of admitting the truth to yourself?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dick denied, taking another careful step forward. “I know you’re in there, Jason.” He had to be. That’s what everything pointed towards. He curled his fingers around an escrima. He had to be in there because Dick knew what he would have to do if he wasn’t, and he _couldn’t_.

Not when he could look at Jason’s face and still see that fifteen year old kid geeking out over literature of all things. Not when he could still see the small, bruised face when he’d pick him up from school after getting into some fight. Never to protect himself, though - not since the first few months. No, it was always to protect someone else.

Dick couldn’t let himself believe that Jason, that that _goodness_ , was gone for good. Not when he was right in front of him. It couldn’t be the demon. Jason was fucking _in there_ and Dick knew it.

“Of course I’m in here.” Jason’s voice broke through Dick’s thoughts, sounding oddly amused as dark eyes focused on Dick’s careful approach. “I’m the _only_ one in here. Demons are remarkably weak willed, don’t you think? Movies give them way too much credit. The asshole tried to consume me, sure, but all it took was a little _force_ to turn the tables right back on him, and then it was adios to that fucker.” His eyes flickered with the memory before he pushed it back and clenched his jaw. When he continued, his tone was like steel.“So now that you see there’s no one here in need of saving, why don’t you hit the road and let me get back to our previously scheduled program?”

Dick had never heard of anyone able to force the demon out themselves, but as his eyes flickered towards the claws Jason still had out on display, he was pretty sure why that was. The demon might be gone, but it _wasn’t_ at the same time because its effects were permanent. Rather than Jason becoming human again, by destroying the demon’s consciousness, he had _become_ the demon. His stomach turned at the realization.

“You need help,” Dick said at last. Bright blue eyes were pained behind his mask. “Please, Jason. Don’t turn this into the fight. If you come back to the Cave with me, we can figure out how to fix things.” He sounded desperate as he took another step forward, only for Jason to take one back. “Or if you don’t want to go to the Cave, we can go to one of my safe houses, and we can figure out things there. Just… please, let me fix this.”

“Fix things, huh?” Jason echoed, his eyes narrowing on him. “I didn’t realize I was something that needed _fixed_.”

Dick winced at his tone. A demon of wrath, and Jason had always held too much anger within him to begin with. “You know what I mean, Jason.”

“Of course I do, Dickie, but here’s the thing. I don’t _need_ fixing.” Jason was in front of him barely a second later, a clawed hand around his throat as he slammed the angel into the ground. He hovered over him, teeth bared when Dick startled to struggle. “You see, I’ve had five _long_ years to get used to my new body, and I’m not ready to give it up.” He’d lost his faith in a higher power a long time ago. All that mattered now was his own and what he could do with it.

This close, he could feel the thrum of Dick’s blood echoed by each pump of his heart. He dipped his head down, nose brushing over the still neck to breathe in the sweet scent of his blood. “So you angels really do smell better than humans.” It made his jaw ache with the need to bite down, adrenaline pumping and rage pounding away within his ears.

“Jason, what--”

“Stay away,” Jason murmured into his ear lowly. “You, Bruce, my semi-replacement. Just stay back and let me clean up the _pendejos_ you skirt past because if you get in my way, I can’t promise you won’t get hurt.”

Dick forced back a small shiver. “You wouldn’t hurt us.” He sounded confident, as if it was some kind of absolute truth. It pissed Jason off.

“Is that a challenge?” Jason asked, mouth still near his ear. “Because I’d have thought Remiel would’ve taught you better than challenging an ira demon.” Especially when Dick’s blood smelled like an actual slice of Heaven.

Dick bit the inside of his cheek hard, though when he spoke, his voice was steady and even. “It’s not a challenge. It’s the truth. If you wanted to hurt us, you wouldn’t have left Tim in one piece.”

Annoyance flickered within his hidden eyes. “Maybe I just thought he wasn’t worth it.”

“Except I don’t think that’s it.” There was a fire in Dick’s tone again, and it had Jason wary because it lit up his little angelic aura, silencing the shadows he’d been carefully cultivating to make sure the dumbass would leave him alone. “You’re still you, even if you’re trying to throw me off by acting like the big, bad wolf.”

“If I’m the big, bad wolf, then you’d be Little Red Riding Hood, and you remember how that story ended, don’t you?” He let his canines graze Dick’s ear as he spoke, allowing them to drag purposefully.

He didn’t expect the sharp shove he received a moment later, hard enough it sent him stumbling back. His eyes followed the bright wings that were now cutting through the dark night as sharply as a knife.

And it didn’t go unnoticed. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw as his target quickly pulled the blinds on his window, taking him completely out of sight. Jason hissed lowly and turned on Dick. “Great. Now he’s going to be on his fucking guard.” Not that he couldn’t get to him still, but the less attention he drew to himself, the better. That was why the Red Hood worked so well.

“Good. I’m not letting you kill him,” Dick said firmly, a hard edge to his tone.

“You really care that much about some murdering, drug dealing _gilipollas_?” Jason sneered.

Dick let out a frustrated breath. “ _No,_ but I care that much about you,” he snapped. “I failed you already and like hell am I doing that again.”

Jason raised an eyebrow over his mask at him. “Oh really? You realize your precious Heaven would consider me an abomination, don’t you? I’m a _demon_ , not the kid who died.”

“I. Don’t. Care.” The angel darted at him, and Jason twisted away with a small hiss at the brightness of the wings that burned at his eyes. That was new. “I’ll fight Heaven if I have to,” Dick continued, chasing after him. Jason ducked underneath his sweep and rolled across the rooftop before standing up with a snarl, claws out and features slightly distorted as all of his teeth grew in length. “I’ll fight Gotham. I’ll even fight you if that’s what it comes to.”

Dick couldn’t fail. Not again.

“Getting a little martyr-y there, don’t cha think?” Jason growled. Why the hell couldn’t the dumbass back off and leave him alone? He was poking the fucking bear without a care in the fucking world for his own safety, and Jason was struggling to remember that he _couldn’t_ bloody Dick up like everything within him was screaming for him to do. That familiar poison was wrapped around his throat, and all he could see was red. He growled again and lowered, looking like a wolf ready to pounce as his claws tore into the rooftop. He used it to stabilize himself, however. Keep him from clawing into Dick to see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

Dick’s eyes tightened behind the mask as the pain of the situation slammed into him with the force of a freight train. Jason was struggling. Jason was _scared_ , even if the man was trying to hide it from him and act as if he had everything under control. If he wasn’t careful, Jason could lose himself so completely to the point where he really did become the demon, like he thought he was already. As long as his heart was still there, that wouldn’t happen.

But how could he protect that heart, keep it there, if Jason kept him at arm’s length? Because all of this killing would eventually kill the goodness he _knew_ was still in Jason, no matter how vindicated Jason felt over it. He closed his eyes and an image sprang to the forefront unbidden of another rooftop - a different time, a different city, and entirely different circumstances with an entirely different person from the one standing in front of him now.

All over again, it felt like there was a hand squeezing around his lungs, constricting his airflow and turning his blood to ice. But he was used to working around the feeling - or over it, as he buried it so deep down inside that he didn’t have to deal with it because he was _fine_. He was fine.

Except he couldn’t do it this time. Not completely. Jason wasn’t going to listen to him. He was just going to keep killing, and Dick _had_ to stop him, but if he stopped him, if he locked him away, there would never be a chance to help him through this. That would be it, and he’d never get another chance because he knew how Jason was. You burn him once and you didn’t have to worry about a second time because you’d never get to it.

Jason needed saved from himself, and maybe, just maybe, Dick could do something about that.

When he spoke, his voice was softer, “I won’t stop you from killing. Not right now, anyway.” Eventually, he would, but not right now. Bruce wouldn’t stand for it, but seeing the ferality Jason was expressing…

Dick had to take what he could get. He would force himself to bear with the blood that would stain his hands from inaction as much as they would stain Jason’s from the actual deeds if it meant he could get close enough to save him. And when he couldn’t bear it anymore and the nightmares seemed to strangle him, when the thought of even putting on the suit was enough to pull him under, well, he’d learn to deal with it just like he learned to deal with everything else because this was what Jason needed and if he could give that to him…

He walked towards the struggling demon - _man_ \- slowly and crouched in front of him when all Jason did was bare his teeth at him, claws tearing through the tile of the roof. For all of his huffing and puffing, Jason didn’t want to hurt him; if he did, Dick’s neck was close and unprotected, and Dick had no doubt Jason would be able to move fast enough to tear it open before he’d even have a chance to react.

But sometimes a little faith was in order.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jason growled, jerking back some. Fucking dumbass.

“I have a safehouse near here that Bruce and Timmy and everyone else knows nothing about,” Dick said quietly, the glow up his wings casting a light onto his face that made Jason think of some kind of Catholic backdrop of the Virgin Mary or some shit. “Just come with me. Let me make sure you’re okay. And just… stay in contact.”

Jason stared at him for a long moment with a furrowed brow and a small tilt to his head, a frown tugging onto his lips. Then, his eyes narrowed in disbelief and rage, that ever constant emotion right at the forefront, and his lips twisted into a snarl. “That easy, huh? I come back with you, and you _don’t_ try to lock me up until you find a way to deal with what I am? Fuck that,” he spat. Before Dick could react, Jason headbutted him hard, the sound the impact seeming to echo through the night air.

As Dick staggered back, Jason forced himself to stand upright, though his hands remained pressed close against his sides to conceal the way his claws bit sharply into the skin of his palms. The teal orbs seemed to glow dangerously, meeting the equally dangerous glow of blue that was just as hidden from sight, but masks could hardly conceal completely the threat of power each gaze held.

“Don’t try to come after me,” he warned, taking a step back towards the edge of the roof. A smirk twisted his lips upward and teal eyes flashed as his head cocked to the side. “Because if you do… I’m not planning on going quietly into the night.”

And then Jason was gone, and Dick...

He let him go.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will eventually be oneshots and other short, multi-chapter fics to follow this one because my beta, whose name will be placed here tomorrow after the author reveal, is a horrible human being who made me realize in the first place that a blind Bruce would mean Batman Dick which led to Jay being the Robin to his Batman. It all went downhill from there and turned into a monster - and due to time constraints, I could barely even touch on this wonderful web of history and relationships. Thus, a series has been born! It is all my beta's fault. Everything. So stay tuned, and I hope you enjoyed this first installment in the series that was brought to be by the amazing prompt by xbullet_01! 
> 
> Translations:   
> Pendejo - bastard  
> Paja - bullshit  
> Cabrón - dumbass  
> El Cielo - Heaven  
> Mamahuevo - cocksucker  
> Gilipollas - dickhead/douchebag

**Author's Note:**

> Spanish Translations:
> 
> Pendejo - bastard  
> Paja - bullshit  
> Cabrón - dumbass


End file.
